


Promises

by RenaRoo



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Flashpoint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-21 09:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6046798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenaRoo/pseuds/RenaRoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For an entire year after the Crisis which threatened to wipe everything they knew and loved off the Earth, after so many hardships and loved ones lost, Cass and Tim find themselves battling on different sides of the globe not only for the fate of what’s left of the world, but for the sake of once again feeling purpose. [A One Year Later fixer upper]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Premonitions

**Author's Note:**

> I have been anxiously planning to get a story like this out for years now and, well, it may have been a decade since the Evil Cass incident and One Year Later shenanigans, but what’s a good comic fan without a grudge?
> 
> Special thanks to @secretlystephaniebrown for putting up with me hinting and mumbling about this story way way WAY prior to its release X3

_One Year Later…_

He could feel his pulse thundering in his ear as he raced through the city.

Smoke and soot mixed toxically in his nose, and there was the stink of coppery blood not far from where he was.

“I’m too late,” Tim muttered to himself as he skidded to a halt on the building’s ledge and began to pull the grappling gun from his belt.

There were blaring sirens in the distance, a Bat Symbol burning itself into Gotham’s reddened skies. The commissioner needed them – all of them – but they were still so scattered by the calamity.

Gritting his teeth, frustrated that he still felt so out of the loop, Tim switched hand sand moved to his earpiece instead. He needed to activate his comm’s open channel.

“This is Robin,” he said out loud through the obnoxious static from the secure line. “I need to know if anyone’s answered the Bat Signal yet. I need to know what’s going on out there.”

He paused for a beat, listening to the mix of static, his breathing, and that throbbing pulse in his ears.

“Anyone?” he repeated just before the faint sound of metal scraping against metal in the distance came to his attention. 

As Robin, Tim trained with many of the best warriors in the world. He recognized the faint noise of throwing stars and in response he was swift to unveil his staff, avoid the first star entirely and catch the second in a block.

Even with the rainwater pooled around him, he was able to keep his feet light.

His eyes scanned the area for the attacker, knowing what their location should have been given the weapons’ trajectories, but before they could even solidly land on anything, he heard the loud _THWACKS_ of a struggle.

And sure enough, fully garbed assassins from the very court which had set siege to Gotham that night fell forward.

He wasn’t surprised at all when he saw the familiar silhouette step over the body and look at him expectantly with those black, piercing lenses.

“Cassie,” he breathed.

“Tim,” Cassandra Cain said back, her head tilting back as she said the name. 

He dared to glance toward the burning visage of Gotham and then back to her. It was almost a courtesy to him that she didn’t vanish in the time it took him to do so. He knew she could.

“You know what’s happening out there?” he asked thinly.

Her head tilted slightly. Even with a full mask, he could practically see the grimace, the determination, the resignation.

When Cassandra looked back, it was as Batgirl. 

“Yes,” she said firmly.

“You’re taking on the _entire_ League of Assassins on your own, Cass?” he asked, voice nearly _begging_ her to say otherwise. 

Her look somehow hardened beneath the mask. “Yes.”

“Cass–”

What he didn’t expect was for her to hold out her hand toward him, to look at him like the long lost brother she had finally found. To look at him with _need._

 _“_ But I don’t want to,” she continued. Her hand shook slightly for emphasis, outstretched to him, fingers reaching. “Please.”

Tim took a breath. He needed to decide…


	2. Birds of a Feather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a bit of a wait on this chapter coming out and I apologize for that. I love writing Cass’ perspective, and I love addressing the mess of issues in canon surrounding her, but trying to sink into the mentality of where Cass was at the end of her series was a surprisingly new experience for me all together. And I hope I did it well!
> 
> Special thanks to @secretlystephaniebrown, a2zmom, J23K, and @slightlycrookedletters for the feedback and support!

_Present…_

The hardest part to accept about the battle was that it wasn’t hard at all.

Cassandra _relaxed_ once the decision was made, that Shiva had to be stopped, and that she could no longer stand by her morals if they allowed _anyone_ to die by a known killer’s hand. 

And the greatest warrior in all the known world came against Cassandra. And even with all her skills and all the blood shed by her hands, Shiva seemed woefully underprepared for her daughter to _relax,_ to _unleash_ herself in combat.

When Cassandra felt the snap of her birth mother’s neck in her own hands, she did not scream or cry or mourn. 

She let the putrid, nauseous feeling wash over her and then calmly caught the still breathing Shiva in her arms.

“Thank you,” was soon followed by “ _Finish it”_ and Cassandra just numbly held the mother she never knew.

“Lady Shiva,” Cass sighed in exhaustion, her skin still wet from the Lazarus waters. “You want to die. Have wanted. You’re… _tired_ of killing.”

Shiva’s harsh eyes narrowed. They told Cass the truth of her words. They also told her that the woman was suspicious of them. 

“Tonight… _I_ kill Lady Shiva,” Cass continued, cradling the paralyzed body in her arms before raising to her feet. She carried Shiva to the edge of the remaining Lazarus Pit. 

Shiva’s eyes widened. “No! Do _not!”_

 _“_ You’re… not going to be Shiva,” Cass said before offering a small smile. “Kill no more… _Sandra.”_

She dropped her mother into the rejuvenating waters and waited. 

Having taken the submersion herself only precious minutes before, Cassandra knew the experience was not all that enjoyable. And she knew no matter her wishes for what the woman known as Sandra Wusan might have been, the rage and ferocity unleashed by the Pit would be all consuming. 

And unlike her mother, Cass did not have prior preparation on her side. 

So when Sandra emerged from the fiery waters of the Lazarus Pit, screaming and clawing, Cassandra wasted no time in throwing a final right hook with everything reserved in her, and landed it squarely on Sandra’s jaw.

They both collapsed in a heap on the floor, Sandra unconscious and with Cassandra panting, looking to the ceiling above. Watching everything around her fade away. 

With a hard swallow, Cassandra realized the numbness she had felt since calming in her rebirth did not disappear with the murder of Shiva on her hands. Rather, it had spread until not a finger or toe felt like it belonged to the name Batgirl anymore.

And as that fact truly struck her, Cassandra felt herself begin to openly, uncontrollably sob. 

Her world darkened with that glow, without the promise of Batgirl’s shining symbol above her. 

“You didn’t really kill her, y’know,” Steph sighed in her ear. “I mean you _destroyed_ her in that fight. But she’s still breathing.”

Cassandra could almost feel her best friend at her side as she continued to sob. “I didn’t save you,” she weeped. “Or Brenda. Or home. Or…”

“I don’t think _anyone_ could have, Cass,” Steph said.

 _“_ Then… who’s _really_ … a hero?” Cass whispered. 

For a moment, she was weightless, lifted up and then wrapped by someone’s arms. Her heart picked up a beat as she thought she had died again, that they were Steph’s arms, but instead her vision and hearing cleared again and she was met by vibrant red hair and the shushed whispering of, “Cassandra.”

“Barbara,” Cass returned, words watery as she hugged her mentor back as tightly as she could manage. 

“It’s okay, we’re taking you home,” Babs promised.

And Cass cried more. 

* * *

When she woke up, Cassandra was surrounded by familiar, sad faces. They all smiled widely at her, but Cass had always seen through the surface. And even if she couldn’t read bodies like most people read books, the apprehension in the air was so thick it was suffocating.

Of the Birds, Huntress spoke first, her harder edge appreciated among the other women’s attempts at walking on eggshells.

“Hey, kiddo,” she said. “You really weren’t kidding about fighting the _whole_ League of Assassins before. I respect that. It was dumb, but in the kind of way that I can respect the hell out of.”

Cassandra sat up as best she could, numbness still coursing through her veins like a poison. She looked down and saw the only damages to her person were to her bruised knuckles, well wrapped and probably expertly stitched.

No longer in her suit, Cassandra traced her fingers down her arms.

“Oh, and you also did it all in my hand-me down,” Huntress continued. “Just so we’re all clear, that’s kind of making you my new favorite right now.”

Taking a breath, Cassandra stopped rubbing her arms. 

It hadn’t been the missing suit which had disturbed her so much, but the scars and potmarks that had os defined her body for most of her life. They were gone, like so many other little pieces she felt had been thrown to the winds when she was reborn by the Lazarus’ fires.

And she couldn’t help but think no _wonder_ her body felt so numb, so distant and unconnected from her very soul.

Black Canary, on some level, looked at Cassandra with that level of understanding. Enough so that it reminded Cass that the fellow martial artist had some training under Lady Shiva as well.

“Hun, are you alright?” Canary asked.

There was the sound of wheels and the Birds made room for their leader, Cass’ mentor – her friend, her sister, her _mother._ All of these things in ways no biology could make them more true between Cassandra and Sandra. 

And when her eyes fell on Barbara, for the first time since she had opened them, Cassandra had _feeling_ in the pits of her stomach. Twisting and turning in knots like an angry den of snakes.

Barbara’s eyes were glassy with emotion as well. “Cass…”

“I killed her,” Cassandra said, words frightfully natural on her tongue. “I killed her, Barbara.”

What fleeting glee had existed on the jet faded away rapidly. Strained shock passed over the features of all the women around the teenager. 

All of them except Barbara. “Oh, Cass…”

“I killed Shiva,” Cass sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “Not… _sorry_ either.” She choked on her tears even as Barbara pulled Cass into the mentor’s arms. 

“Wait, I’m confused,” Lady Blackhawk spoke up. “Isn’t Shiva the broad we have in the hold? I thought she looked just fine. Better than our girl to say the least.”

“Sandra,” Cass corrected, pulling away from Barbara to begin furiously rubbing at her eyes. “Not Shiva. Not anymore.” Her eyes hardened as she managed to look to the other women again. “I killed Shiva.” She looked to her trembling, bandaged hands. “Sandra came from… the Pit. Like me.”

Slowly, the others began to grow the reluctant understanding in their eyes that Barbara had had all along. 

After all, what _didn’t_ Oracle know?

“She would never… _stop_ as Shiva,” Cass begged for Barbara to hear the importance of her words. To understand Cass’ twisted logic. “She would… kill again. And _again._ And it would be… _my_ fault.” Cass bowed her head, felt her heart clench in her chest as she continued. “Maybe Sandra won’t.”

There was a moment which stretched with the silence between them all. And then Barbara cocked her head to the side. “Do you believe that, Cass?” she asked seriously. 

“I died once,” Cass reminded her mentor. “I came back… _better.”_

What she didn’t say was that she had died once again, that she worried with every fiber of her being that _this_ time she could have only been born again for _worse._ That she felt ugly and shameful and numb in this new skin.

One thing could come at a time.

Barbara was always fast to catch onto Cassandra’s meanings. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes worriedly, in that way that pinched wrinkles on the corners of her eyes. 

“Cass, you are _so_ special. Do you know that?” Babs asked before looking back at Cassandra. “Not everyone can come back with a new lease on life like you–”

“You _said_ I made… I made change _real_ to you,” Cass threw Barbara’s words back at her. “That’s… what you said to me. Is it… still true?”

The older superhero closed her eyes, thinking deeply on the postulation before opening them again. “What do you need us to do?”

Heart picking up, warming her chest, Cassandra smiled appreciatively at Barbara. “Help her,” Cass requested. “Help her be good. _Please.”_

 _“_ Okay,” Barbara agreed with a nod.

The other women looked to each other then back to their leader. 

“Hey, uh, what exactly are we agreeing on here?” Black Canary asked. 

“Taking responsibility for Lady Shiva isn’t exactly a part of our Mission Statement here,” Huntress added.

“We can only try,” Babs said. “And it’s not for Shiva… it’s for Cassandra. I think we all could try for _her_ at least.”

“Kid sure deserves it for going after that League of Assassins by herself,” Zinda agreed more readily. 

Cassandra felt her stomach lurch forward at that. She didn’t feel she deserved much of _anything_ anymore.

Not without taking some responsibility for herself first. 

“I need to tell him,” Cass said, her stomach bottoming out at the very thought. The others stared at her until she clarified. “Batman… I… I need to..” 

What was an already uncomfortable atmosphere only became more so. 

“Honey… Batman doesn’t…” Canary paused, collecting her words.

“He doesn’t understand compromises,” Huntress added. “I have experience.”

Cassandra knew these things. She knew them more than anyone. But she also knew they – their family – were detectives.

She looked to Barbara for support.

Crossing her arms, Babs frowned before taking a breath. “She’s right,” she said firmly. “Cass is right. Even if we don’t tell him, he’ll know. And if he finds out any other way it’ll be that much worse.”

Her eyes stung as Cass looked to her lap. She almost missed the total numbness. 

Disappointing Bruce, even in theory, made her feel sick.

“I don’t like it,” Huntress fired back.

“We don’t have to,” Barbara said, grabbing Cass’ hand and squeezing. “We all know the truth. And, more importantly, we know what parts of the truth really matter.”

Cassandra breathed, able to again meet Barbara’s eyes, appreciate their fierce protectiveness. 

“But before anymore of that,” Babs said slowly, “we need to go to Blüdhaven.”


	3. A Hero Without a City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter focuses on Tim and the Blüdhaven exposition a bit more, but I need to clarify that I’m tweaking what kept Tim out of the city during the Chemo drop on Blüdhaven. I really am not a fan of the Willingham run for multiple reasons (especially for Tim’s characterization in the latter half, to speak nothing of the Steph & War Games involvement toward the middle), but it always kinda baffled me what a loose storyline it was to keep Tim out of Blüdhaven during this destruction period. So I changed it up a bit, and instead had Tim dealing with the General/Ulysses Armstrong who would continue to be Tim’s villain all the way up to his time as Red Robin. It’s not a huge change of pace, just wanted to clarify for the comic purists that it’s just so there’s more cohesion when I bring up characters & events as being more important later. 
> 
> One of the benefits of fanfiction a decade after events, after all, is that I have the benefit of hindsight. And know how little the canon version of events mattered to the playing out of the rest of Tim’s journey. 
> 
> Special thanks to @amurogay, @secretlystephaniebrown, @batfamspam, mypgems, a2zmom, and midnightandmoon for the feedback and support!

The Genera’s distraction had kept Tim plenty occupied for the past several weeks. The sort of consistent thorn in his side that led to tactical oversights Ulysses _loved_ to for Tim into making. And was always good for making Tim feel like a rookie Robin all over again. 

In his worst nightmares, Tim usually found those scenarios were followed by Batman somehow knowingly arriving to further prove the fact that Tim was failing eternally. Which was why Tim nearly forgot to breathe when his communicator began vibrating on his hip. 

He looked around the rock quarry suspiciously. “Am I… actually dreaming?” he wondered confusedly. 

The communicator vibrated once more and Tim answered it. “What’s going on?” he asked with as much feigned confidence as he could.

“ _Robin,”_ Batman’s voice boomed, withering away as much of Tim’s false bravado as two syllables could. “You’re not in Blüdhaven.”

Feeling like he was summoned to the principal’s office, Tim looked around, expecting Bruce behind every corner. 

“No I’m not,” he finally agreed. “A situation came up involving a former rogue. I had to make sure I took care of it before it got out of hand,” Tim stumbled his way through excuses. 

He still wasn’t even sure what was wrong with leaving Blüdhaven, truth be told. He merely hoped the Penguin wasn’t causing more of a ruckus or that Batgirl wasn’t in trouble.

Though the latter was more of a joke. Tim could hardly think of a situation where _Cassie_ would be in trouble. 

“Is Nightwing with you?” Tim repeated, confusion growing. 

Dick’s year had been nearly as rough as Tim’s own. Tim hadn’t heard all of it from his brother-in-arms, and honestly wasn’t sure if _any_ of them had the full picture, but Dick had been worn down even before the gang wars in Gotham. He hadn’t put on his suit to Tim’s knowledge since being shot in the leg.

“No,” Tim answered. “He’s not with me.”

It was amazing how well adapted Tim had become at reading the pauses between Batman’s breaths over the years. Without a word shared between them, Tim knew that Bruce was very upset, that his pulse was elevated, and there was probably some injury to his ribs hitching what breaths forced themselves out.

Alarms were going off in Tim’s head.

“Batman?” he pressed. 

“Keep your communicator open,” Bruce ordered. “I’m in the plane. I’ll be at your position in thirty seconds.”

“O-okay,” Tim replied shakily. He took a heralding breath and turned his eyes to the skies. His throat tightened more with each passing second. “I don’t need more surprises,” he said without being able to help himself.

He had been surprised by a phone call from this father. Surprised by a talk from Bruce about Stephanie. 

Tim could go another lifetime without surprises. 

For all of the Bat plane’s silence in the air, the final approach disrupted the air of the quarry with all the strength of a hurricane. As it lowered, the glass of the cockpit flew back and Tim knew from practice that it was time to jump on board.

Batman was still alienatingly quiet even as the top closed and they began for take off.

Though he sat behind Bruce, Tim could recognize the thick smell of sweat, soot, singed hair, and the metallic scent of blood. His mentor had already been through the ringer that night, it seemed.

“What’s going on?” Tim all but begged. “Is it that new guy in the news? Red Hood? What’s he have to do with Blüdhaven?”

” _Nothing,”_ Bruce snapped. It was a dark and vicious voice. One he recoiled from just as much as Tim did. “I _did_ deal with the Hood tonight,” he explained. “But he’s… That’s not your concern. We have larger problems. We have to find Nightwing. And if he’s not with either of us then he’s returned to Blüdhaven and we have to find him before he hurts himself.”

Feeling panic squeezing in on all sides, Tim stared at Bruce for a long moment. In the air, in the safety of the cockpit, his professionalism leaked out of his voice. “Bruce, I’m sorry, but what the _hell_ is going on?”

Blüdhaven would always be Dick’s domain, but for the last several weeks it had belonged to Cassandra and Tim. _They_ protected Blüdhaven as Batgirl and Robin. 

Nothing coming out of Bruce’s mouth was making sense to him. And while he had gone out of his way to avoid talking to Bruce since the gang wars and everything he had lost for the sake of Batman, Tim was always going to be hardwired to need Batman to say everything would be alright. 

Even when it wasn’t true. 

And right then, Batman _wasn’t_ saying it. 

“Chemo,” Bruce finally said. “The Bioweapon. We weren’t able to stop a band of known threats led by Deathstroke from using it to nuke Blüdhaven.” 

The news struck Tim to his very bones. His eyes widened in horror at the very _idea_ of his home for last few weeks being completely gone. Of the school he didn’t give a chance, the streets he barely knew the names of, the police he had barely spoken to. 

_The nursing home his stepmother was living at, just beginning to show signs of recovery…_

_“_ What?” Tim asked, barely more than a whisper. 

“With everything else happening at the moment, containment is being handled by anyone the League can get a hold of,” Bruce continued. “We’re going to assist if we can when we get there but our concern is Nightwing.”

Feeling cold, Tim waited for Bruce to add more to that list. When it didn’t happen, Tim swallowed and pursued it anyway. “Batgirl?”

“With Oracle,” he dismissed easily. He continued either to avoid or ignore other pressing worries in Tim’s mind. 

Tim knew deep down that he didn’t need to even ask, but he continued. 

“Did they evacuate Dana and the other patients?” 

The silence stretched for an uncomfortable minute, then Bruce breathed through his teeth. His grip tightened on the steering wheel.

“I don’t know,” he answered. 

He didn’t know because he never even thought to ask. Tim could _feel_ it. And it killed him slowly and quietly as he sat behind Bruce and waited for the nightmare to be over. 

* * *

The devastation was overwhelming. 

Tim watched from the plane window with his own eyes but he still could not believe it. Couldn’t _begin_ to comprehend it. 

A lot like Gotham, Blüdhaven could find beauty and grace in its sharp angles and dangerous edges. The kind of remarkability that was only found with practice and distance.

But right then, from the plane, Tim was seeing no angles, no edges. 

Blüdhaven was flattened, _gutted._ It had been blistered and left open like a rotting wound. Direct streets and towering buildings were bent and melted.

There was no form to the ruins of the city. Just the haunted green glow of noxious disaster, the low burning red of the skyline, and a thick smell of sulfur reaching Tim’s nostrils even from the interior of the Batplane. 

Tim stared through his window and allowed the creeping realization to work its full effect. And though the loss of so much life, the loss of so many livelihoods, was spelled out for him in the destruction below, Tim had told Bruce the horrible truth months ago at Stephanie’s funeral. 

He had no more tears to shed. Even for all the unfortunate people he failed to protect in Blüdhaven.

Really though, Tim hadn’t made the first friend since moving there. Hadn’t even _tried._

Even Cassandra had managed that in Blüdhaven. And in the years since she came to Gotham she decidedly hadn’t tried to socialize beyond their network once to Tim’s knowledge. 

Something about them had almost switched in the aftermath of losing Stephanie, Tim supposed. Though he couldn’t quite put his finger on the what or why. 

When they landed, Bruce hardly wasted time before exiting. 

“Keep your communicator on,” Bruce ordered. 

It was basic stuff. The kind of thing Tim hadn’t had to be reminded of since before his first solo patrol. And while a part of Tim would have liked to give Bruce the benefit of the doubt and assume it was out of understandable concern given the circumstances, the pattern that Tim had come to associate the tone with was utter distrust. 

Which was odd since other than leave Blüdhaven, Tim couldn’t think of what Bruce would be mad at him for.

All the same, Tim swallowed and nodded. “Right.”

Before he left in the opposite direction, Bruce paused and turned just enough for Tim to see some of his cheek. 

“When you find any of ours,” he said lowly, “give them immediate aid and then contact me. But don’t put yourself through more contamination than _absolutely_ necessary.”

Tim felt a little taken aback. Perhaps it _was_ more concern than he had thought. 

“I have my mask on ready,” Tim said, reaching toward his utility belt. 

“That’s fine, but it’s not going to be enough in this mess. Especially with your arms in the open,” Bruce said. He then left in a rush. 

Glancing toward his arms, Tim studied his quarter-length sleeves for a long breath and then carried forward. Of all his uses for his Robin suit over the years since he, Alfred, and Harold had designed and built it, Tim would have never imagined that a design flaw could have come from the sleeves. 

He made a note to do something about it later. 

When he came across some of the evacuation teams, much of the progress was already underway. 

People’s skin were molted and reddened from exposure. They clung paper masks to their faces uselessly, their eyes reddened and tearing. There was a lot of pain going around, but given the circumstances there was a definite relief in the order at which evac was progressing. 

This also gave Tim a good guess that things had been handled for a while – probably hours into the catastrophe already. And the the sickened look to the emergency responders themselves seemed to only aid that conclusion.

So, basically, while Tim had been playing war reenactments, the city under his charge had been dying, mostly saved, and brought into a shellshocked state of calm before Bruce had even found him.

And _that_ was the most sickening part of all. 

He looked for distress, somewhere that _needed_ him, but the further he went the more he saw a lack of such things. And the more he saw heroes – mostly those he recognized, though several that were new even to him. 

All converging on Blüdhaven with intentions of salvaging the people of the city that they could. 

It was only in the distance that he saw the Aerie One and some _very_ familiar faces leading people on board. 

In particular, Tim saw Cassandra in her full costume – beaten up and bloodied as it looked – helping people on board with her head hung low. 

Pulling up his communicator, Tim messaged Bruce, “Batgirl is with the Birds like you said. She’s kind of beat up, though. I don’t _think_ it has anything to do with the city. Not by the looks of it from here.”

“Hnn,” Bruce responded, a soft sound of crying near his radio. He probably had a child among the people he was dealing with, and knowing Bruce that child was stuck to his hip. “Good. Ask them if they’ve had any luck with Nightwing.”

Tim took a breath. “On it.”

“And, Robin,” Bruce spoke up before taking a long pause himself. Then, lowly. “We’ll look for Dana Winters soon. I promise you.”

Mouth dry, looking to the horrors of the city, Tim didn’t know if he even wanted that. Still he said the only thing he could. “Thank you.”

As Tim approached the jet, Cassandra’s head lifted up almost defensively. But her body all but melted when she saw Tim, and she raced forward. 

“Robin!” she shouted before throwing her arms around his neck and squeezing the life out of him almost.

Coughing, Tim lightly patted her back. “B-Batgirl,” he responded. He noticed a small tremor through Cass’ shoulders at the address. It was so unusual and _very_ obviously in response to her monicker. 

It was the kind of thing to immediately spread discomfort. 

She slowly pulled back, letting Tim see the full extent of damage to her costume. Scratched and torn, tethers clinging to her body armor only barely. Cassandra seemed to have gone through hell. Even her eye lenses were busted out. 

Or, at least, her suit had. The skin and body beneath the bloodied fabric was nearly unblemished. 

Even for Cassandra’s level of skill it was cutting it close.

But those were clues to add up to something later, Tim was sure. In the moment, his one remaining friend was crying.

“The city,” she coughed out. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Tim said truthfully. “I… I don’t _know_ why, Cass. But we’ll find out.”

She looked at him before roughly rubbing away her tears. 

Tim kept his hand on her shoulder just a moment longer when his communicator went off at his side. His heart leaped in his chest as Tim answered it. 

“Batman? Did you find him?” Tim asked, both needing and dreading the answer. 

“No,” Bruce’s voice grouched out. “Superman did. He’s taking Nightwing home to Penny-One. I’m meeting them there.”

The communicator went offline and Tim stood in silence staring at it. 

What was _he_ supposed to do? How bad was Dick? What _caused_ this?

“The Teen Titans,” Cass spoke up, hugging her arms. “Your friends… they’re helping. Set up camp nearby.”

He looked at her tiredly. 

Cass then waved to the Aerie One. “We’re… _flying_ to Metropolis. Hospitals and rooms. Oracle has… connections there. You can come, too.”

“I probably need to see the Titans,” Tim said. “Thanks, but… they’re here probably for me just as much as they are for the rest of Blüdhaven and I’ve got to at _least_ let them know I’m okay.”

She nodded sagely before lowering her head. “Be safe. Robin.”

“You be safe, too, Batgirl,” Tim said, watching as his sister-in-arms shuddered at her own name again. 

Everything was wrong, it seemed.


	4. Gotham Girls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate not being definitive in these sorts of declarations but… I’ll post in a week or two if I’m going to officially put this story on hiatus or not. I’m leaning toward yes because I want to eventually finish this sucker, I mean I’ve put a lot of work into it already, but it’s hard to be too excited for it. And you guys who are supporting this work and being patient with me, I appreciate you so so very much. But I just don’t know if I’m ultimately doing this story or the characters justice given current circumstances. I’m having one of those life crisis/change in perspective things. And I worry that me writing about old continuity is going to be taken as a complete lack of support for these characters’ futures. Which, I know sounds like I’m giving myself and what I do for fun way too much self-importance, but it’s a principle sort of thing. And I want to to consider the atmosphere I’m helping feed into before I decide on where to go next with this story. So it might be a while for chapter five, and I am so so sorry to everyone who started reading this with the expectation I would update regularly and try to finish as soon as possible. 
> 
> We’ll see. 
> 
> Special thanks to @secretlystephaniebrown, @amurogay, @kaltese, smleeish, and Kiyomisa for the feedback and support!

After Blüdhaven, the true storm came swiftly on them. 

Cassandra still felt hollow and numbed, but she continued to wear the symbol of the Bat. She had not yet been asked not to, and Bruce had not been seen long enough at any one time to be properly told what had happened between herself and Shiva.

She waited in the cave at odd hours for him. Sometimes Tim was there, numb and tired with her. Sometimes it was Alfred.

Only once had it been Dick and Cass had grabbed her brother and all but threw him back in his sickbed upstairs in the Manor when it had happened. He still moved around the Manor unauthorized but he at the very least learned to stay off Cass’ path if he did not seek immediate correction for his stubbornness. 

The week after Blüdhaven’s attack had seen the slow receding of everyone who had tried to initially aid the city. 

OMACs, like the one Cass had encountered before chasing Lady Shiva cross the world, were causing a ruckus among the hero community. An undercurrent of mistrust was being brought to the surface, and Bruce was involved in ways he would not tell Cassandra.

A scathing, hateful part of herself she had long thought squished out kept reminding Cassandra of the Gang Wars, Stephanie, and a long beat of silence from Bruce when asked about his guilt in those.

Cass hated the side of her that could not let go, even in all of her love and belief in the Bat. And she feared how much stronger the voice was since the Pit.

She instead tried to keep concerned with the present.

Oracle’s mask stared at her over the Batcave computer. A substitute for the frustrated sighs no doubt coming from Barbara Gordon half a country away in Metropolis. 

“You’re more than welcome to come stay with me until this all settles,” she begged Cass.

“I  have to tell,” Cass defended with the same tired argument. 

“And you will, Cassandra. But I’m worried about the timing of all of this,” Babs continued. “I’m worried about if Batman can handle all this with the stress added to it.”

“I worry for Master Bruce’s stresses as well, Miss Gordon,” Alfred’s voice carried from the stairs.

Cass turned, pleasantly surprised by Alfred’s approach. She enjoyed the butler’s company and like that such a seemingly normal member of the family continuously managed to almost sneak up on her. She always needed a docile challenge. 

“Alfred?” Cass asked just as soon as she could see a secondary purpose to the man’s approach. 

“I am afraid I have lost contact with Master Richard again,” he informed them. “He would not have happened along here, would he?”

The question made Cass grow a slight scowl. It seemed as if throwing her brother into his bed was once again on the agenda. 

“I will take that as a no,” Alfred sighed. 

Oracle’s filtered voice became broken and skittish as it often did when left with the task of deciphering a sigh or laugh. “Dick,” Barbara groaned. 

Cassandra worried her lip just before noticing that several lights came to life across the dashboard of the computers. She gave a quiet blink before moving up to check them out for herself. 

Barbara must have had a similar alert system go off across her computers. “Not now,” she uttered. “We’re not able to handle this. We still have people in Blüdhaven–” The superhero coordinator cursed under her breath. “Cassandra, I have to go. Try to find Dick if you can. There’s something big going on and the last thing we need is Nightwing going where he can’t be of any help on that bad leg of his.”

Looking to the screen, Cassandra’s eyes widened. “I can help?” she offered. 

“You _will_ be helping,” a deeper voice alerted them all. 

Taking over the screens from his side, Batman popped up on the channel, his viewscreen displayed showing both his unshaven features and the interior of the plane. 

“Batgirl, you are in charge of taking care of Gotham. Oracle, we need someone on full alert, get in contact with _everyone,”_ he ordered.

“What constitutes _everyone_ , B?” Barbara asked warily. 

“ _Everyone,”_ Bruce snapped before cutting his line. 

With a frustrated growl, Barbara hissed, “It’s the same damn thing as _last time!”_ She then cut off as well, leaving Cassandra and Alfred staring at the screen.

“All of Gotham?” Cass asked, feeling a pang of guilt at the undeserved trust. 

“A monumentous task,” Alfred agreed before appraising Cass. “One that could not have had a better hero chosen for the job. Now suit up, Miss Cassandra. I will be monitoring you from here. And please _do_ look for Master Richard out there, if he is indeed out there at all.”

“He is,” Cass said firmly as she pulled her mask on over her face. “Maybe not… _Gotham._ But out there. I know it.”

She took off for the cycles. 

* * *

"I will be your eyes and ears from over the monitor,” Alfred’s voice informed her from the communicator in her cowl. “I will attempt to prioritize these alerts as I believe you would want.”

Cassandra gritted her teeth and dove into the scuffle between the GCPD and a shining, blue OMAC.

The humanoid shapes of the mechanical beasts were deceiving, as their methodology and movement were devoid of intention and emotion like a human’s would be. 

It was like Cass was fighting against a moving rock. But the rock was capable of firing plasma weapons. 

“Don’t… _like this!”_ she growled as she grabbed an injured officer and flung herself and him to safety just before the cruiser was bombarded with fiery debris. 

“Perhaps we require some assistance then,” Alfred decided calmly.

Grabbed by the cape, Cassandra was thrown into the air after setting the officer down. She recalled fighting the robotic fiend attacking the public library and a burning seed of anger returned to her mostly numbed and somber body. 

_Stupid._

From her belt, Cassandra grabbed her grappling hook, aimed at the back of an OMAC’s head, and fired it in midair. The mechanical beast seized up as Cass clicked the retractor and sent herself hurdling at the OMAC.

If it was like the one before, then there was a person inside and she tried to be mindful of that fact even in her rage. 

“Don’t _need help!”_ she roared at Alfred just as she landed a kick to the OMAC’s face and sent an unconscious pedestrian to the ground, groaning and confused about what had just happened to him and expensive blue suit. 

Cass landed on another cruiser and examined which OMAC was asking for it next when a whip cracked across her vision.

Whirling around, Cass looked in time to see the familiar visages of Catwoman and Huntress from opposite buildings. 

“It’s been a while, Batgirl,” Catwoman smirked, hand on her hips. She seemed to be enjoying the alarm her quasi-criminal presence was causing the scanning OMACs.

“Mind if we join in, kid?” Huntress asked. There was a thin line drawn on her expression between the thrill of action and the concern developed from knowing far more about Cass’ recent life events than the Batgirl would have liked her to know. 

The anger, the _disappointment_ , at not having the ability to watch over the city on her own was burning her up inside. It echoed her failures of the past, the judgment and pity of her own family. 

It reminded her of being too ‘ _stupid’_ to solve things herself and that was enough to make her want to vomit on the spot. 

But she stood in quiet understanding instead of rash action. 

_Nobody dies tonight_ was more important to her than any source of pride. She nodded to her fellow vigilantes and watched them go to work, heart twisting painfully.

“We are only here to help you, Miss Cassandra,” Alfred’s voice reminded her calmly. “Please remember that.”

Taking a breath, Cass nodded. “Thank you, Alfred,” she said, too low for anyone to hear save maybe the butler himself.

“Batgirl! Heads up!” 

Cassandra looked up just as Catwoman’s whip drug an OMAC from the skies by its ankle and came right for her. 

In the moment, Cass could shake off the anger, embarrassment, and even numbness. Because, for her, there was no peace like there was in motion. And leaping into the punch of the OMAC’s jaw was _exactly_ that.

* * *

As the OMAC numbers whittled down, Cassandra couldn’t help but wonder why the other Bats had not shown.

Their company wasn’t explicitly necessary – between herself, Huntress, and Catwoman Gotham’s onslaught of the human-mechanized attackers was somewhat handled. And the GCPD had finally managed to quarter off the damaged streets while rounding the citizens into community shelters. 

But it was unlike the other Bats to not come to the aid of their city the moment it needed them.

Huntress seemed to be looking at Cass with some amount of understandable concern. 

Knowing was a heavy burden, after all.

But Catwoman simply stretched and yawned at the end of a night’s good work. 

“That was a work out,” the former thief called, amused. “It’s been fun partying with you girls, but I keep getting glances from a few of Gotham’s finest that aren’t the fun kind. I think I’ll split before anyone gets a fresh idea.”

“Thanks,” Cass managed to get out, hoping the simple word held as much weight as she meant with it. 

Catwoman winked at her before pulling down tighter on her goggles and taking off to the roofs.

The purple clad vigilante by Cass’ side towered over her – Huntress was all Gotham hardlines and thick muscle. It reminded Cass of, no matter her status as a prodigy, how much experience she had left to gain on the Gotham streets. 

“I’m not the GCPD’s favorite person either. So I’ll just leave dealing with them to you,” Huntress informed her, looking at Cass carefully. “But you did great tonight. Really rose to the occasion. I know you didn’t really look like you wanted help, but for what it’s worth I didn’t think _you_ necessarily needed it.”

“You’re worried about me,” Cass cut to the chase. She scowled slightly. She knew Huntress was wise enough to not debate the truth when Cass could so clearly see it written in her body’s movements.

"Comes with being a teacher,” Huntress shrugs. But her eyes are still hard, still unyielding as she looks at Cass. “I know you tend to keep these conversations between you and Oracle, Batgirl, but I’ve heard it talked about.”

A little confused, Cassandra tilted her head.

“I _am_ a teacher,” Huntress continued. “And a damn good one. So if you need a tutor, if you don’t want to work with Oracle or Batman or any of the others – which I think is _completely_ understandable, believe me, I would get it – then you just need to come asking for me.”

The offer flustered Cass immediately. Her stomach twisted as she looked away from Huntress. But as much as the embarrassment seeped in, even more so Cass thought of Nyssa Raatko and her hurtful words – the very real point that _Batman_ never offered to help, that no one really wanted her to learn, to give her the time and effort for it. 

Taking a breath, Cass nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay then,” Huntress said, sounding satisfied. She headed toward her bike and threw on her helmet. “I’ll see you soon, then.”

And with that, Huntress left, and Cass felt the creeping apprehension take over her. 

She buried it as best she could to instead focus on her new dilemma: figuring out what happened to the rest of their family and figure out just why they were not in Gotham. 

And figure out why the OMACs had finally stopped in their attack.

 


	5. A Grave Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW. Super long time, no updates. But, hey, I’m back in the swing of things and I’m here to make up for it with a giant chapter of feelings~
> 
> Special thanks to @secretlystephaniebrown for being just a fantastically supportive friend and for giving long ago feedback on this sucker before the hiatus <3

Everyone in Titans Tower had, in some form or fashion, personalized their rooms. Their preferences and needs were all met in every way possible. Which made it somewhat more of a curiosity how the _unpowered_ among them would decorate.

From what Starfire and Cyborg had said to him, Tim had taken the same approach to dressing up his room and locker the way the Robins before him had. Plain and boring.

His colors matched his uniform, and there was a photograph from his, Cassie, Bart, and Kon’s first day at the tower. 

There was some training equipment, a punching bag and the like. 

And endless supply of batarangs should he choose to open any of the doors of his dressers as well as a lot of other equipment. 

A computer desk, a gaming chair that only really got use when Bart invaded some of his personal space. 

 _Bland_  was perhaps a word Tim found more apt for his tastes than _boring._ And that was not any unplanned thing. Tim had known from the start exactly what he was doing. 

Not leaving a mark.

Tim’s grandest fear for years was the belittlement and degradation of the Robin name. That somehow his very use of it, his role, would take from the people that came before or after him. He had been trained endlessly to follow their steps, but also to not step out of line.

The impression he was responsible for making within the hero community went almost without saying: he was the new Robin. Not _the_ Robin. Not _that_ one. Not…

Throughout the entire room there was only one break from the Spartan bareness that Tim had taken up, and that was a ridiculous, oversized clock that hung across the room from his bed that was a gaudy Gotham souvenir in the shape of the projecting Bat Signal in the Gotham night. 

It was black and yellow, but the most annoying part about it was the thick outline toward the edges – a bright white strip that, at night, had the audacity to _glow in the dark._

It was hideous and annoying. 

Tim had never once touched it to so much as take it down let alone _set it._ After all, it had been a long standing challenge between him and Kon. 

Kon had gotten it as a gag. Kon had hung it in Tim’s room without permission. Kon had refused to take it down despite Tim demanding he do so. 

When Tim looked at that gaudy, awful clock, he thought of his best friend. He thought of the one person who had trusted him – and only him – like no one else in the world. He thought about the only person who knew his identity in the Tower, who knew he had Enya CDs in his collection, that he would defend Stephanie’s right to be Robin even against his former teammates. 

He looked at that clock and it was suddenly all horrifically apparent to Tim that in the grand scheme of things, he truly had _lost._

And it didn’t matter what the world threw his way from that moment forward, he was not going to feel more terrible than he did in that exact moment. 

Tim set on the edge of his bed, staring at the awful clock on the opposite wall when he heard the hesitant knock on the door of his room. He turned just enough to see that it was Bart, looking particularly out of place not bursting in and taking charge of the room as per his usual manners. 

“Hey, uh…” Bart stumbled on his own words, bringing a hand to his mouth and chewing on a finger nervously before trying again. “We… I think almost everyone who’s coming is… come. So… They’re outside right now.”

Looking at Bart, Tim attempted to muster some sense of feeling, some words of comfort. After all, he was fairly sure that Bart had never lost someone on this magnitude before. Not since Max Mercury and…

Still, Tim couldn’t stop the dumfounded staring at Bart. 

“I was sent to get you and Cassie,” Bart spat out at last. “So we can… Start. And things.”

Tim looked back down to his lap and folded his hands together. The rub of the leather against itself gave a satisfying crackling. It felt like that should’ve been more than answer enough for Bart or anyone else. 

But Bart was still waiting expectantly at the door. 

“Tim… I don’t know what to do,” he finally said. “It’s not fair that we’re asking you… asking you to…” He squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head. Tim could already see the tracks of tears working their way down his cheeks. “I can’t ask it of Cassie – _no one_ could be that cruel to her. But, Tim… _Tim._ I… I know you’ve been to too many funerals lately. That _I_ should be the one of us to go up and-and… but I can’t. I can’t stop crying every time I think about it. I’d run away, right off the stage.”

“No, Bart, you can’t do it,” Tim said lowly. “We’d never ask you to… This is hard for anyone. And you don’t want to. And we’d never tell you to do something you can’t do.”

“But you’ve–”

“I don’t have any tears left, Bart,” Tim said simply, drawing the speedster’s gaze entirely. Tim let out a dry laugh. “I don’t. I can’t… I have to do this because Kon deserves it. Just like _Stephanie_ and _my dad_ deserved it. But I didn’t have tears left for them either. The kids who died in my school deserved it. Orpheus deserved it. Not to mention all the heroes who died in the Crisis. Everyone deserves it, but I’ve only been asked to speak for _one_ and… I have to make it count for _all_ of them… because I don’t cry for them anymore. I have to make this one moment count.”

Once the word vomit was clear from his system, Tim looked back toward Bart, maybe looking for some reassurance or perhaps just acknowledgement that such feelings weren’t the epitome of selfishness in the face of the people who had _truly_ lost everything. 

What he received instead was a stare of mounting horror from his childhood friend.

“Dude,” Bart whispered, breathless and lost in a way he never was from running. “Robin… you need… I’m so sorry.”

Genuinely surprised by the statement, Tim turned more toward the Kid Flash. “What do you mean? What are you sorry about?”

For once, Bart’s mouth didn’t seem to be working in his favor. After a few aborted instances of trying to get words out, he then turned and took off like a speeding bullet, as if to get as far away from Tim as possible.

Which… was fair. Tim wasn’t sure if he was the most consoling force in the world. At least not anymore. 

It wasn’t fair for him to not be supportive, to not be _there_ for his closest friends at the time where they needed him most. But Tim _couldn’t_ force himself to be better yet. 

Tim sat on the edge of his bed for a little longer, waiting for it to be time for him to out and lead everyone else in the one thing he couldn’t yet afford for himself: _healing._

* * *

By the time Tim made his way down to the ground floor, the sun was setting and it was clear to see that Bart had not been exaggerating about everyone being there – Titans then and past. 

He still found himself hesitant to step forward, because the statue before them was daunting, casting the kind of shadow in the golden sunset that nearly seemed as long as the one that Kon himself cast over them at that moment. 

Tim knew every Titan was there, but it still caught him off guard when Dick approached him, arm still in a cast, limp still obvious. He wasn’t in his Nightwing suit, though he wore the mask over his eyes. 

He _had_ to have had Roy or someone else sneak him out of the Manor after all he had been through. There was no way Bruce or Alfred had let Dick out of their sights long enough for him to pull such a stunt alone. 

Dick approached Tim without any of the reluctance or hesitation that seemed to keep paralyzing Tim with every step. And despite his mask, it was clear that he was in the throes of concern for Tim. 

The intensity of it made him uncomfortable. 

“Tim,” Dick said softly. “Kory told me you had wanted to eulogize and… This year… This year has been too much on you. I was the one who asked Conner to help me during the Crisis, and as a Founding Titan… well I think it would be proper for me to do this.”

A flare of emotion that had been escaping Tim nearly all day came up in his chest and he narrowed his eyes. “I’m not a fragile doll, Dick,” he said lowly. 

“We know that, Tim,” Dick said. 

And it was that _we_ that was suddenly very telling.

Perhaps Bruce _did_ know about Dick escaping the Manor after all.

“If I don’t do this today, I’m never going to forgive myself, Dick. And that’s the truth. And if I don’t do it because of _you,_ then I’m probably not going to forgive you for it either,” Tim announced with what he hoped was just the right amount of gravitas. 

For all the gravity, though, Dick seemed more saddened than anything. 

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Dick said. “Just know… I’m here for you.”

“Yeah…” Tim said, heading toward the other Titans. “Seems like everyone is.”

If Dick had more of a reaction to that statement, Tim didn’t turn back to see it. He was a man on a mission by that point. 

Fortunately no one else tried to stop him as he got in front of everyone and cleared his throat. 

“I… What I need to do is say something,” Tim said, already flummoxing. But as the eyes of all the Titans turned toward him, he built his resolve and continued. “About Superboy… about _Kon._ Because…” There were phrases like _he deserved it_ and _he would’ve wanted_ on the tip of Tim’s tongue. But none of them were true. Not entirely. 

But everyone was still looking to him, so Tim dug deeper, found words that felt hardened into his bones, felt larger than Kon, larger than his feelings toward everyone else lost as well. 

“He’s… _gone_ now,” Tim said, brows furrowing as if the gravity of that fact was still new and surprising to him. “He was my best friend. Sometimes my big brother. Sometimes my little brother.” He paused, caught his breath, made an effort to not meet any eyes but also to not look away. There was a blur of a crowd before him and he couldn’t see _anyone._ Which was good. Because he could feel the tears welling up despite the fact that he didn’t think there were more of them in him. “We did some stupid things together… We talked about _girls._ We talked about _cars._ And… when my dad died… when Spoiler died… even when I really didn’t want to… we talked about _that,_ too.”

Tilting his chin up, Tim caught his breath again. It was _so damn hard_ to say, but he couldn’t stop himself anymore. 

His audience, despite Tim, was seemingly captivated. Caught in awe.

“I don’t know who to talk to now about that stuff. I guess there’s always _Batman_ and _Superman…_ I mean, in times of _Crisis_ that’s what you’re supposed to do, right?” Tim went on. “Look to your heroes…” 

H reached up and roughly rubbed away the tears that escaped his mask, took another sharp breath. He could finally see _who_ was around him at that point. The original Titans, or what stood of them by that point. The new Teen Titans and Titans alike. The Titans before his own, and then… him, Cassie, Bart… The members of Young Justice wearing clothes they’d long abandoned so as to pay respects. 

Uniforms of every color. 

“When we lose one of our own, we never know quite what to do,” Tim continued. “Because… we _are_ the heroes. It doesn’t matter if we’re still seen as kids, if we’re still seen as young and maybe a little impatient. Because we’re the Titans. And in this time of _Crisis_ , the world looked to all of us. We answered.” He looked up to Kon’s likeness in the statue, a crushing weight continuing to settle in his chest. “Kon answered. Because Superboy was a hero. And the whole world got to see that he deserved to be called it.”

Cassie burst into tears, tucked between Koriand’r and Bart, Tim knew she would be held up, even if he didn’t know if she’d be _okay._ So he finished up.

“They say that people live on… That you don’t forget them if you talk about them,” Tim said softly. “So let’s never stop reminding people what Superboy did for them.”

By the time Tim was stepping down from the front of the crowd, he felt it. The emotions that had been chiseled into his bones, gnawing from the inside out through the aches and pains of tiredness. He felt what had been missing since the night he found his father dead and his classmates murdered and his girlfriend tortured.

Tim felt the tears come and he kept them back long enough to walk away from the crowd, numb to the words Cyborg was currently giving, numb to everything but the tears that were managing to get past his mask and no doubt loosen the adhesive.

The only thing he could feel once his vision blurred was how strong Dick’s grip was when he caught Tim’s shoulders with his one good arm and pulled him back against his chest.

Nose bending against Dick’s chest, Tim didn’t care as he leaned in further until his forehead and chin were pressed into the fabric of Dick’s shirt and his head tucked under his mentor, friend, and brother’s chin. He didn’t care who saw, though he doubted anyone was paying attention as the ceremony continued on.

“Let’s get you home,” Dick whispered, rubbing circles into Tim’s back, still pressing him close. “I’m so sorry, Tim.”

Nodding along, Tim had little to say back. Just questions.

Questions like why was _Dick_ sorry when there were those more responsible? And what was _home_ anymore when he was fatherless and motherless and friendless and there was no Blüdhaven and—

He meant the Cave. The Cave was his home.

And there was something, even if Tim could only think of it peripherally, inherently wrong with that sentiment.

* * *

When they reached Gotham’s harbor it was well past sunrise. And, for reasons Tim refused to reflect on, he felt some tremendous relief at the realization. Not because it meant that he could finally stop flying the Batwing or because he would be able to lock himself in the guest bedroom that had been his officially for a week and unofficially for _years._

There was something heavier there. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on until they dipped into the cloudy Gotham waters and finally entered the tunnels that took them to the Batcave far, far into Bristol.

He finally was able to put a finger to the emotions he felt when they came in for a landing and, against all expectations, Bruce was actually still awake and in the cave working. Still there. Still being Bruce.

And when that realization crept into Tim’s mind, the horrible truth set in.

Tim’s best friend was dead. But the man who made Brother Eye was as good as the father that Tim had lost only a few months before.

After realizing his own emotions, a nauseousness overcame Tim and he leaned forward, setting his forehead against the steering wheel of the Batwing. His eyes were wide, though hidden behind the loosened domino mask.

He felt sick. He felt wrong. He felt _so goddamn ungrateful._

“Come on, buddy,” Dick’s always soothing voice called before Tim could feel the strong grip of Dick’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him once again. Always there to be a guiding light — that was Dick Grayson in a nutshell. “I know you have to be tired, but I’m not about to let you sleep in the Batwing. Not when there’s a warm bed and Alfred’s tea waiting on you just upstairs.”

Which meant walking past Bruce. Which meant walking past the man who built the construct that would eventually lead to almost losing Dick, to _actually_ losing Kon.

The man he had looked up to his entire life. The man who took Tm under his wing. The man he loved like a father when he didn’t know what a father’s love felt like. The man who believed in him the way almost no one in the world could.

The man who had not so much as turned from the Batcomputer since their landing. The man who had not gone to the Metropolis statue ceremony. The man who had kept Tim out of the loop until Jack Drake was making his last phone call. The man who kept Stephanie Brown’s death a secret until Tim’s usefulness as Robin was realized during the Gang War.

The Batman, and all the complicated feelings that Tim had never addressed because _how could he?_

“Tim, I’ll carry you if you don’t walk. Just watch me,” Dick teased.

Without further prompting, Tim got to his feet and looked up at Dick.

Dick had already taken his mask off and his own exhaustion was clear in his face. Some sweat had accumulated just below his hairline, and strands of his hair had gotten caught in it, highlighting the obvious fact that Dick could use a decent haircut. He was sweating and weary from pain but he somehow managed to exude sympathy even before he reached forward and pulled Tim into another one armed hug.

“I’m so sorry, Timmy,” Dick repeated.

But Dick wasn’t the one that Tim wanted to be sorry.

They walked out of the Batwing together and both stopped close to the computer dock where Bruce sat. When he still didn’t turn around, Tim scowled and headed toward the lockers so he could change into the pajamas he could always count on Alfred leaving there.

Almost predictably, Dick went to Bruce to force the matter. It was what the original Boy Wonder was best at, after all.

“I see a lot of missed calls stacking up on the third monitor,” Dick declared as Tim ripped off what remained of his mask adhesive and began to yank at his boots and gauntlets. “They all look familiar, but you can never tell with how smart collect calls are getting these days. You ever asked one if they’re a robot? They get all offended, but they can’t say they’re not robots. It’s weird.”

There was a pause of silence where Tim was _certain_ that Bruce was not going to bother answering. So much so, that as he unclasped his cape, Tim was almost _startled_ by hearing Bruce’s gruff voice answer.

“They’re from the Justice League. Various members. Mostly founders,” Bruce replied.

“Do they need more help for the relief efforts?” Dick asked.

Tim pulled up his pajama pants and tightened the strings.

“They don’t want things to be messy, so my resignation would be preferable,” Bruce answered. “Diana has already tenured hers, setting the example. No one was going to ask her for it. Not even me. But she did it, and now it is the _seemly_ thing for members of the League who are in violation of the Charter to do.”

“Booster Gold doing commercial endorsements isn’t in violation of the Charter?” Dick asked dryly.

“Booster Gold did not almost destroy time and space or invaded privacy on an international scale,” Bruce responded. “Worst of all… Brother Eye never once helped _me_ to prevent the unpreventable.”

“It was the wrong way to go, but they can’t have a Justice League without a _Batman,”_ Dick urged. “If you don’t resign and it’s put to a vote, who on the current roster would stand with you?”

Tim closed his locker door quietly and looked back toward the dock, wondering if the list in his mind was close to Bruce’s.

“No one,” Bruce answered coldly.

He was wrong. Tim’s reserve status as established by the same clause that had allowed Dick as Robin and Jason after him to work on League cases would have made _Tim_ eligible for voting privileges.

 _Tim_ would still defend him. Even in his angriest, his saddest, his loneliest.

Because Bruce was still Batman.

“No one would,” Bruce repeated.

Without saying goodnight or acknowledging either in the cave at all, Tim started on his way upstairs. He needed rest almost as much as he needed closure, and his near sycophant nature on the matter was making him nauseated all over again.

Neither Dick nor Bruce seemed to notice his departure.

It was still debatable if Bruce had realized he was there at all.

Heading upstairs, the exhaustion hit Tim like a Ferrari at one-sixty, and even the mental image of such a thing felt appealing compared to the truly rotten guilt that was eating away at him from the inside out.

He had no plans other than to reach his room and collapse into his bed.

But, of course, there was always something unexpected along the way.

The guest room Tim had made his own was merely one of several in the wing of Wayne Manor. Dick’s old room was a bit further down, close to the Master where Bruce of course slept. Tim had been offered Dick’s room before, but considering the trauma of Blüdhaven and everything with it that Dick had undergone, no one had to even ask Tim to move further down the hall. He did it the moment he saw Bruce and Alfred drag Dick home from the Gang War.

There was also Jason’s room. A room that had never been a topic for discussion in all the years Tim had had access to the Manor. And it remained even _more_ so recently.

What Tim _wasn’t_ used to, even if in the back of his mind he was always aware of it, was the guest room that was reserved for one person who never utilized it.

And he was _certainly_ not expecting to see her sitting in the middle of the room’s floor with the door wide open.

“Cass?” Tim called out, stopping in the hall.

Cassandra was sitting in the floor with her back to him, though much like the brief time they had lived together in Blüdhaven, it wasn’t much more than a loose tank top and leggings. Her body was folded over, hugging her knees, chin resting until she heard Tim call out.

Of course he hadn’t surprised her or snuck up on her, but she apparently had been anticipating that Tim walk on by. Because when Cassandra turned to face Tim, tears were fully falling from her cheeks.

“Cassandra,” he muttered again, taking a subconscious step into the room. “How long have you… What’s going on—“

“Didn’t go,” she told him.

“Didn’t go?” Tim repeated in confusion.

“To see him,” Cass said lowly. “To say goodbye.”

Then he remembered — of _course._ Kon had been the first boy outside of Gotham that Cass truly got to know, the first other hero to get to know her. He was a friend to her, too.

And Tim hadn’t even _thought_ of what Cass had lost recently.

“I know you’re not a Titan, but… If you had told me you wanted to go, Dick and I would’ve taken you,” Tim assured her, getting down to his knees to be more on Cassandra’s level. “ _I_ would’ve taken you. I know he was… he was your friend _and_ mine and…”

Cassandra shook her head once, but meaningfully. It was more than enough to let Tim trail off without pressing further.

“I’m… not the same person,” Cass said almost quietly, tears still falling. “I’ve… I’ve _volved,_ Tim.”

“Solved?” Tim asked, still confused, before hesitating as he saw her shoulder, his eyes adjusting to the room.

Cass had never been particularly shy about her body, to what was usually Tim’s dismay, but because of that he had seen her collection of scars. None stuck out more vividly in his head than the exit wound on her shoulder that he had seen up close and personal before. It was large — having grown with age since her father had shot her when she was still so young. And seeing it, remembering it, had always managed to bring Tim’s blood to a boil.

But, right then, at that moment, _it wasn’t there._

_None of them were._

“Your scars…” Tim said out loud, astonished before looking to Cassandra’s face, searching for an answer. “They’re gone.”

Her tears kept falling but her expression didn’t change. “I’m not the same,” Cass said. “Lazarus… I’m not the same. Please. Please, Tim. Don’t… Don’t tell Batman.”

Tim stared at her, processing everything. His brain was still a foggy mess of emotions and repressions and all the more. But for that moment, clarity hit him.

He was good at being able to shove his feelings aside to put someone else’s first. Most of the time. _This_ time.

With a little hesitation, Tim grabbed Cass’ shoulders with the same strength that Dick had done with him for most of the day. It was enough to put her full attention on him. “I won’t. I’m here for you,” he assured her.

Dick probably would have ended it with a hug, but Tim wasn’t there yet. He couldn’t give out those with the same meaning. But Cass seemed to be in tune, as she reached up and put her hands over his to squeeze them back. And they both let the tears come.

By the time he woke up in the morning, Tim wasn’t sure who was responsible for putting the blankets over him and Cass as they had passed out on the floor of her room.


	6. Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was slightly hard to write because Cass is my girl and any emotions she feels just get me unlike few characters I’ve ever written, so putting her through the ringer right now is a test on my own writing fortitude lol
> 
> Special thanks to @secretlystephaniebrown, @slytherinkyuubi, @chimaerakitten, and an Anonymous fan on tumblr for the feedback and suppot!

Cassandra could feel herself drowning again.

The water boiled around her, ate through her skin and bone. She couldn’t move, even thrashing seemed to only encourage her body to stiffen tighter and tighter in the coils of death. Her throat burned, and she wanted to scream not because she was dying, but because against her will, against her sense of peace, her body was being willed to _live again._

She was utterly ensnared in the waters of the Lazarus Pit, kicking and screaming, until finally she tore her way through and clambered to her feet, breathing heavily and holding back the tides of the Pit from trying to wash her back down again.

Only, there was no Pit. There were no waves, no currents, no boiling fires or the smell of death and sulfur.

Clenched in her fists were the two sides of a bedsheets torn in two. And her feet rested not in the banks of sand but in a mattress that was far too accommodating for someone who had shot out of it like a slingshot.

Cass continued to breathe heavily, looking around her room as her eyes tiredly adjusted to the change.

It wasn’t even dark, at least not anymore. Sunlight was attempting to pour into her room despite the obstruction of the curtains. And outside her door the Manor’s halls were apparently lit as the light was brightly shining through the cracks.

She hadn’t been revived again. She wasn’t suffering in the pools of green hell water. She wasn’t drowning.

It had been a dream.

Except for the part where all of it had been utterly, truly, _overly_ real just days before.

Exhausted before even starting her day, late as that day may have already gotten without her, Cass dropped the remains of her bedsheets and hopped down from her bed. The baggy _I bat Gotham_ shirt hung halfway down her thighs, and her loos drawstring pajama pants far from matched, but Cass had never been one for fashion all the same.

She walked toward the door, rubbing her face and leaving her hair to stick up on ends that she wasn’t aware she had grown back yet, and opened herself and the room up to the world of the living.

From the first step on, things were startlingly routine.

Cass maneuvered silently through the mansion on instinct, arriving in the kitchen and perching on a seat by the island that let her pull up her feet into the seat and rock steadily back and forth on it as she yawned and rubbed at her eyes again.

Somehow, magically, Alfred came along and was already halfway through making her a breakfast of her favorite things.

“Look as though we will be out of cereal soon between you and Master Richard,” Alfred said, though there was a curl to his nose as he examined the box of sugary treats.

“He here?” Cass asked, leaning her cheeks into her hands as she watched Alfred.

She already knew the answer.

“I am afraid he and Master Tim are both at the hospital. He is _determined_ to talk some one who did not earn their doctorate into taking his cast off early. I am assured that Leslie and Master Tim will put a stop to it before he comes too close to sawing it off himself,” Alfred announced, pouring milk in a bowl then orange juice in a cup.

“Bruce?” Cass asked.

She already knew _that_ answer, too.

“I am afraid he is at work this morning, Miss Cassandra,” Alfred said before putting her tray before her. “But, as always, I am here to serve, Miss Cassandra. Happily, contently, forcefully,” he joked before poking at her nose.

Despite herself, Cass laughed at the affectionate gesture and picked up her spoon. She was two scoops in before she looked warily in Alfred’s direction. “Alfred?”

“Hm?” the butler hummed as he turned back to her.

“I tore my sheets in half again,” she informed him, beginning to gulf down what was left of her cereal. “Third time. Let’s just not change them anymore. S’not working.”

A worried look crossed Alfred’s face and then he sighed heavily. “You _absolutely_ will have new sheets, Miss Cassandra. There will not be a charge in my home without proper covers. But I once again _must_ urge you to seek out someone to talk to about _why_ you continue to have such violent nightmares, dear girl.”

Cass finished her cereal in record time and gabbed her orange juice to take with her, pushing off from her seat.

“Not just dreams,” she said as she walked off. “Me. I’m just… _violent.”_

Alfred let out a discouraged noise but Cass couldn’t bare to witness his disappointment in person. Instead she headed for the Cave.

It was time to train and hope that, eventually, her demons could simply be fought away.

* * *

By nine, Cassandra still had not seen Bruce, Dick, _or_ Tim, but she also did not bother Alfred with any questions as to why that might have been. In truth, it was difficult for Cass to get past the numbness that overtook her throughout the day’s routine, as the rawness of waking from her nightmares grew more and more distant to her.

She trained and she ate and she spent all of it alone where once it might have felt like an intolerable amount of time.

For Cassandra, it was old hat.

At nine, there were still a few hours before peak patrol time, and the Manor was growing more unsuitable for the restlessness Cass felt after hours upon hours of numbness. So she suited up and went, without warning, to the small, private airfield in Bristol where the Aerie One was currently grounded in secret.

Though, considering a suited up Batgirl was heading toward it in the dead of night while on a Batcycle probably brought into question just how firmly kept that secret could be.

Still, for as unconventional as Cassandra could sometimes be, she was not refused in the slightest as she came on board.

And more than that, she was _expected._

Helena Bertinelli — the _Huntress_ , as Cassandra knew her better — was in a purple sweater with black leggings, holding a smoking cup of coffee that must have been freshly made as its smell permeated the entrance of the plane. “Hey there, didn’t realize we were doing this _in costume._ I would’ve been dressed more appropriately.”

Cass gave a small shrug and came on into the plane. “Going to patrol. After.”

“Makes sense,” Helena said, shutting the door behind her and following Cass to their usual spot. “Did you pick up the book I recommended to you? I _know_ it’s in Bruce’s library. I called to make sure.”

“Not yet,” Cass said, pulling up into the desk chair and drawing her legs up to hug against her chest. “Phonexes today. Yes?”

“Phonics, yup,” Helena replied, settling down beside Cass with her coffee, taking a sip. “Have you been practicing on your own?”

“Yes,” Cass lied easily.

“Mmhmm,” Helena said before pulling out the phonics cards they had been using for the last week. “Well, going through these will be pretty easy tonight then, right? We’ll get you right on out to patrol before the Scarecrow can split a hair.”

“R-right,” Cass said less confidently, arching her shoulders forward in a way that draped her cape to cover more of herself.

The numbness ebbed away for the first time that day since it had arrived uninvited, but _feeling_ was not always _better_ than not feeling. Embarrassment flushed her cheeks and flustering caused her brows to wrinkle as she studied cards with ridiculous rules.

Part of wearing her costume was because of her anticipation for an upcoming patrol, but _another_ part of her costume was the importance of her mask. It shielded her face in ways few things could, keeping Helena from seeing her full reactions to being told _no_ and _try again_ over and over.

It also hid the genuine excitement and relief that crossed her entire body as a correctly pronounced card was placed in the _good_ pile, that was done for the night.

In a way, Cassandra _hated_ how learning made her feel. And she _hated_ how _ds_ and _bs_ were not interchangeable but sometimes _cs_ sounded like _ks_ until _chs_ and _ths_ came by to also confuse her. And then _as_ sometimes on cards in certain fonts she could mistake for _qs_ and it was so hard to remember _z_ at all because she saw it so little.

Cass hated it so much.

But she hated even more that the emotional exhaustion she went through while Helena’s steady, calm demeanor was as practiced and poised as ever. She _lived_ for teaching, Barbara had once said. It was as natural to her character as putting on a cape.

And that made her _particularly_ frustrating for Cassandra, just like the rest of the family. Because it meant Cassandra’s struggles — if she let them be seen without her mask — were quick to be judged. She was _certain_ of it. Even when Helena assured her otherwise.

“Well, I think it’s safe to say you didn’t actually practice on your own since last time,” Helena said, putting down the cards after what felt like _ages_ to Cassandra.

Shame came down, crushing Cassandra as she buried her head in her knees. “Mmsorry,” she muttered.

“It’s alright, but you need to remember that _learning_ is just like anything else. You get _out of it_ what you _put into it._ Even if you sometimes have to put in a little more effort for something like reading than you think others do, it’s no bigger of a deal than them having to put in extra work in order to fight as well as you do,” Helena said as she put up her teaching materials.

Cass’ frown only grew and she narrowed her eyes as she looked at Helena. “No one… feels this bad about not having good enough _kicks_ or _punches._ Not like I feel now. For _reading_ and for… _just talking,”_ she pointed out sharply. “And no one… thinks Tim’s _stupid_ because he kicks too slow!”

Helena’s brows furrowed in response and she set aside her coffee mug. “Wait a second, Cassie. Who’s calling you stupid?” she demanded.

Immediately, Cass curled more into her cape, instant regret coursing through her. Barbara’s words were still there, in the back of her mind, vicious and unthinking in a way that Barbara almost never was. It was the first thing that came to her mind, like always, but it was far from the _last_ or _only._

Truth was, she had seen the flicker of resentment from many faces, many times over the years.

“Everyone,” she finally answered. “They… think it.”

“And they’re wrong,” Helena said firmly.

“No,” Cass said, hugging her shoulders. “Nyssa… she said she could teach me… Told me I was… _broken_ to everyone else. That’s why no one tried—“

“Hey, isn’t _this_ trying right now?” Helena pressed, tapping her finger on Cass’ books. “There’s nothing _broken_ about you, Cass. You’re different. You’re amazing… and not _everything_ can come as naturally to you as fighting and reading people. That gets you _frustrated_ and makes you _not want to try_. I understand that more than almost anyone else. That’s why we’re working together.” She then turned to gather some of the items on the desk together. “That’s why I keep telling Barbara you would be better off coming with us when we take off. But even if you don’t want to, then you and I are going to make a schedule and keep in contact on Skype or phone — however we can get it to work so you’re still tutoring—“

Caught off guard, Cassandra perked up and looked Helena’s way with wide eyes. “Take off?” she repeated, startled.

Helena looked at Cass warily. “Yeah, we’re leaving next… Oh, for godsake, she _didn’t—“_

Getting to her feet so fast, Cassandra accidentally sent her desk chair flying back into the wall behind her. “Where’s Barbara?” she demanded.

Covering her face with her hand and sighing deeply, Helena pointed toward the cockpit. “Damn it, Babs.”

Furious, Cassandra took off for the front.

* * *

Cassandra nearly burst down the door in her anger and she wasn’t even sure if she would have cared had it happened. Instead she just barreled on through to where Barbara was sitting beside Zinda at the helm with a large projected map of the east coast out before them.

Both women looked back in surprise.

“Easy on the Aerie, she’s a sensitive lady!” Zinda admonished, pulling back on her cap.

To her credit, Barbara seemed more expectant. “Cass, how did your lessons with Helena go—“

Ripping off her mask so that Barbara could see _exactly_ how upset she was, Cass glared at her mentor. “You’re _leaving?_ You’re leaving _again!?”_ she cried out in anger.

“Whoo boy,” Zinda muttered, looking less comfortable by the minute.

“Yes,” Barbara replied. “Dinah is taking time off to retrain and—“

“And?” Cass asked, nose curled as she got in Barbara’s face.

“The Birds are needed _elsewhere,”_ Barbara fought back stubbornly. “Our main headquarters is a _plane,_ Cassandra. We operate across the world. We don’t belong only to Gotham anymore. We _can’t_ stay in one place. It’s… Well, it’s dangerous.”

Narrowing her eyes, Cass clenched her fists so tightly she could feel the knuckles popping. “It’d be _with me,”_ she hissed. “You promised—“

“I’m keeping my promises,” Barbara assured her holding up her hands. “I _am,_ Cass. I never lied to you.”

“Then why can’t _I_ go?” Cass demanded.

“Because _I’m keeping my promises,”_ Babs replied in frustration.

Easing back, Cass felt like she could breathe again. “You’re… She’s going with you?”

“Yes,” Barbara said, though her expression could not have looked more soured if she tried. “Sandra Wusan is a probationary member of the Birds of Prey. She’s getting her second chance… though I’m not taking her out of her cell until I’m sure we can push her off the plane at about a thousand feet first if we need to.”

Relieved, Cass tilted back her head and smiled. “Good. This is good,” she said firmly.

Zinda looked back and forth between them before scratching at her head. “It _is?_ Well I hope someone bothers explaining how!” she groaned. “We’re keeping a murderer on the Aerie One… and then there’s the Lady Shiva business!”

“I can hear you,” Helena called as she came to the cockpit’s door. “Babs, are you honestly telling me you were going to leave without even offering to bring Cassandra with us?”

“It’s okay,” Cass assured her tutor. “Understand now.”

“Understand what?” Helena demanded, still eyeing Barbara for answers.

“Cassandra and Shiva cannot be together,” Barbara said firmly. “First off, I wouldn’t allow it after what she put Cass through over the past two years. Second off, it’s… It’s Shiva’s only motivation. She says she will keep her promise to Dinah for the next year, but it’s Cassandra… Cassandra is going to be the only thing that truly motivates her to stay on this path. They both have something to prove to each other.”

Helena looked to Cass sympathetically. “Isn’t that something that would be easier to prove if you were allowed to work together?” she asked Cass gently.

“No,” Cass said. “She would want me to… kill her. It’s what she… _really_ wants.”

At that, Helena and Zinda looked at each other equally perplexed.

“We’re gonna get a woman to change her mind about not killing other people for a year so that she can ask her daughter to kill her at the end of it?” Zinda asked.

“Shiva is _not_ Cass’ mother,” Barbara said firmly. “She gave _birth_ to Cass. That’s it. And I still haven’t ran the DNA test so it’s taking Shiva at her word—“

“Yes,” Cass answered more simply.

“Helluva year it’s about to be, isn’t it?” Zinda asked Helena.

Reminded of just how long it was going to be, Cassandra looked back at Barbara. “I… I won’t see you?” she asked.

“Of course you will,” Barbara promised. “Maybe not always in person but…” Babs reached forward and tenderly cupped one hand against Cass’ cheek. “Cass, you’re _everything_ to me right now, you understand? You’re…”

“Batgirl,” Cass completed.

“You’re _Cassandra,_ and even if you don’t know it yet, that is a thousand times more important to me than even Batgirl,” Barbara answered. “I want to do right by you… to make up for all the big and small mistakes over the years and more. I’m doing this for you… no matter how hard. I’m going to try to show Shiva she has a second chance — that she doesn’t deserve. And that it’s because of a daughter — that she _really_ doesn’t deserve… that doesn’t belong to her.”

Cass wanted to find the words within her to dispute Barbara, to remind her that _everyone_ had the opportunity — the _second chance_ — for anything. And that if they did not believe that for the likes of Shiva, how could they _begin_ to believe in it for themselves.

For _their_ relationship.

Reaching down, Cass cupped Barbara’s chin in her hands and offered a small smile.

“Thank you,” she said instead. “Thank you for helping Shiva.”

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Barbara’s smile came through and she pulled Cass by the waist into a hug. “It’s for _you,_ but alright.”

Closing her eyes, Cassandra tried to imagine that hug could last them more than only a moment in time.

* * *

Patrol, if it could even be counted as patrol, was mercifully short by the time Cassandra had made her parting words and embraces with the Birds.

As Barbara had wanted, she never saw Shiva in that time, and in a way Cass thought it was best. _Knew_ it was best. Because as much as Cassandra wished to help the mother who birthed her find reformation, the rest of the path _had_ to be Shiva’s or it was not going to be true at all.

Afterwords, Cassandra did not detect anything unusual until she pulled into the cave on her bike and found no one else coming in for the night.

It wasn’t _unusual_ for Cass to be the last to call it quits on patrol, but the Redbird and the Batmobile looked practically undisturbed when she passed between them. She even reached down and placed her hand on the hood of the Batmobile and found it cold. It had been sitting there for a while — if it had been used at all that night.

And _more_ alarming was that Batman was not sitting at the computers, filing away his findings of the night, updating files, doing basic casework. Which, in truth, he had been doing _more_ than actual patrolling for the last week or so by Cassandra’s estimations.

Her heart began pounding in her chest. Something was _dreadfully wrong._

Without even changing at her locker, Cassandra ran up the stairs to the Manor, ripping off her mask and all but kicking down the grandfather clock in her desire to get to the others of the Manor and _fast._ She did not know what was wrong, but she _knew_ it had to be something.

Even the Manor air felt stale and choking as she raced through.

She desired to shout out for the others, but she couldn’t even fathom what names to call, what danger could be available. Not until she reached the foyer and found four surprised expressions meeting her.

“Miss Cassandra! Thank goodness you’re here,” Alfred said, putting a hand to his chest as he breathed with relief. He then looked to Bruce, Dick, and Tim. “I suppose you were about to surprise her with this announcement as well, Master Bruce?”

Breathless, Cassandra tried to calm herself down — everyone was fine, everyone was _alive._ But there was an unmistakable tension between all of them. Alfred’s anger was hardly subtle, which was a rarity for the butler. Tim was to the side, further from Bruce than from Dick, the same deadened expression he had worn since Superbly’s funeral clear on his face. Dick was limited in movement due to his injuries, but he kept on the balls of his feet all the same, shifting uncomfortably under Alfred’s gaze _and_ Cass’.

Bruce was… Bruce was walled off and not looking at Cass completely.

When there was no cowl, it was his greatest tool to keep her from reading him like a book.

“You shouldn’t be upstairs in uniform, Cassandra,” Bruce said first, because _of course_ he did.

Cass’ brows furrowed and she stood her ground, glancing across all of them. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

It was then that she noticed the packed suitcases and totes behind them. It was _then_ that Cassandra’s teeth began to grind as she worked desperately to refute her own conclusions.

“Nothing’s wrong, promise, Li’l Sister,” Dick said with his own note of desperation. “We just… Well, not _we,”_ he said with a flicker of resentfulness in his glance toward Bruce. “It’s been decided that the three of us are going on a trip.”

For a moment, Cassandra stared at all of them in disbelief. Then she produced a scowl to rival the Bat’s.

“You’re leaving me too?” she demanded angrily.

“Too? What do you mean? Cassie, it’s just—“ Dick began.

“No,” Cass said, holding up a hand to silence Dick. Her full glare was on Bruce. He finally returned it. “Why?” she demanded.

“You’ve not been honest with me recently,” Bruce surmised. “I don’t know what happened in—“

“Not your business,” Cass snapped.

“ _You_ are my business,” Bruce retorted.

“Master Bruce, _really?”_ Alfred cut in before Cass could shout back. “I believe we are all speaking out of turn and without enough thought. If we could only take a moment to talk this through and _not_ last minute go on a cross world tour—“

“It has been decided, Alfred,” Bruce continued. “It’s necessary. Just like it’s necessary for Cassandra to stay—“

“ _Why!?”_ Cass demanded.

“Because Gotham _needs_ protection,” Dick answered for Bruce. Cassandra looked into his eyes and, as usual with Dick, they were open with honesty. “It needs it, Cassie. It needs someone to be the Bat in town while Bruce is away and… and I’m not in condition. It’s why I’m going, too. Isn’t that right, Bruce?”

Cassandra looked squarely at Bruce — at _Batman_ — but… she did not find either. The man who stared back at her was… vacant. Injured. He _hurt_ in a way that bent his character and confused his soul to an unrecognizable fashion. She wasn’t sure _who_ he was anymore.

And the same judgment, the same view, was looking back at her.

Bruce didn’t know _her_ anymore either.

“Gotham needs Batman,” Cass said, breaking the silence. “That’s… what you wanted me to be. Isn’t it? That’s why… It’s why I’m learning to read. _Isn’t it?”_ When he didn’t immediately answer, she stomped down her foot. “That’s why I’ll do it. That’s why I’ll stay. If you still want me to… be you when I’m gone—“

“You should want to read because it’s a necessary skill for your independence and livelihood, Cassandra,” Bruce interrupted.

She couldn’t cry, it wasn’t like the other night with Tim. But she certainly _felt_ like it.

“You should want to be _Batman_ again,” Cass retorted angrily, “because… Because _Bruce Wayne sucks!”_

With that, she stormed off to her room, ignoring the calls after her.

She slammed her door behind her and covered her mouth with her forearm as she squeezed her eyes shut and bit back a scream. Her blood boiled like Lazarus waters and she, for a moment, missed the numbness in exchange for the rage and upset that pumped through her veins instead.


	7. Picking Up the Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I took something of a sabbatical for the last week and a half. For those who aren’t familiar, there’s a convention in Austin, Texas called RTX for fans of Rooster Teeth productions, and I was blessed with the chance to go and reunite and meet for the first time so many of my friends. I think it’s given me more than enough time to recoup and get back to working on everything I can get my hands on~
> 
> Special thanks to @chimerakitten, @secretlystephaniebrown, Onceuponymous, XaoOfTheMists, KiwiBat, FanOfYourWork, and Kiyomisa on tumblr, ffnet, and AO3 for the feedback and suppot!

If Tim hadn’t been there himself, he might not have believed that it had happened. His bag was setting next to him on the floor, ready to go, when he watched Cassandra tear off up the stairs and out of sight.

He had seen Cass through some low spots —  _Blüdhaven_ had been a low spot for both of them — but he had never seen such a cruel look in her eyes as the one of betrayal and disgust she threw their way once it was clear she was not invited on their excursion.

Tim’s insides twisted mercilessly at the realization that, before that moment, it hadn’t really crossed his mind whether or not Bruce intended to bring Cass along with them.

Despite being a team, it had always felt like Cass had done her own thing, so far and away from the rest of them.

Except, of course, when they had looked out for each other at Blüdhaven. Which made the guilty twisting of Tim’s insides all the worse.

He looked desperately toward Bruce. “We’re not  _actually_ going to leave her, are we?” he asked worriedly.

“If this is something to get all of us back to form, it  _would_ make sense to let Cassie come along, Bruce,” Dick said in an even more reasonable tone.

“No, she’s not coming,” Bruce said decisively.

Amazed at Bruce’s brutally blunt delivery, Tim let his jaw hang for a bit while Alfred cleared his throat to get Bruce’s attention once more.

“Sir, even  _beyond_ your reasoning for leaving behind Miss Cassandra — if indeed there  _is_ reasoning — you still have not explained to myself  _or_ her just what destinations your trip happens to entail,” Alfred reminded him sternly, almost angrily. At least, for Alfred by Tim’s estimates.

Bruce’s scowl was set, his singular protective shield from the butler’s scrutiny. “Not all of the destinations have been decided yet, Alfred.”

“And those that  _have?”_ Alfred demanded.

Silence met the question for an agonizingly long twenty seconds. Tim could not help but count them purely from how awkward it made him feel.

Getting the hing, Alfred took a deep breath and held up his hands. “I am afraid that this is once more somewhere I should firmly put my foot down. But seeing as how you cannot be so kind as to tell me where to  _place_ it, I will move on to more important matters. Matters like attending to a young woman who may not know it yet, but absolutely deserves a cup of tea.”

“Alfred,” Dick called out as the butler turned and marched off in the direction of the kitchen.

The former Robin’s upset was clear on his face, even as he looked back worriedly toward Bruce. There wasn’t the clear anger and frustration that Tim was almost expecting from Dick. He just looked like he needed  _answers._

Maybe for so many different questions even Dick didn’t have the words to start.

“Please say it’s true that you need Cass here to look after Gotham,” Tim begged before the silence could carry on as it had with Alfred.

Bruce’s sharp eyes shifted to him almost instantly, but he didn’t speak.

“Bruce, Cass… She’s not like the rest of us. She  _needs_ Batgirl, and to protect Gotham, and… she just lost everything she was only starting to build before,” Tim tried to explain. His hands motioned slightly with his rambling but once he caught how little impact his words were having, he grew subconscious of it and dropped his arms to his sides.

“That’s why,” Bruce answered. “Who are you, Tim?”

Caught off guard, both Tim and Dick ended up looking at each other.

“I don’t understand,” Tim responded.

“Since Superboy’s funeral, don’t think I haven’t noticed how neither of you have been asking to patrol,” he continued, as if the point was made in that simple fact.

“I physically  _can’t_ at the moment, Bruce,” Dick reminded him. “ _Yours_ and  _Leslie’s_ orders, as I remember it.”

“But that has never stopped either of you before,” Bruce pointed out sharply.

Dick’s face made it clear that he wanted to disagree more, but he held back. A sour look developed instead which, for Tim,  _did_ feel very much unlike the Dick Grayson he knew.

“It is not an indictment,” Bruce clarified. “I have found my aspirations as Batman in question these past weeks as well. I no longer can clearly see the mission in the midst of my many mistakes.”

A ping of pain hit Tim in the chest at that point. The mistakes. Like  _Brother Eye._ Like all that led to Superboy Prime. To the things that almost destroyed all of reality as they knew it and ripped so many good, courageous heroes from them right in their primes.

The anger and blame that the community held for them all in response.

“The three of us are on the same path. We need the same healing,” Bruce continued finally. “What Cassandra needs is… something else. Something she will get in Gotham.”

Dick looked suspiciously at Bruce, putting his good hand on his hip. “Let me guess, you’ve made  _plans_ for that to happen for her? And you just couldn’t bare to share with her or us any more than you could share this trip before springing it on us?”

“I’m doing what will be right for everyone, Dick,” Bruce argued back stiffly.

Having heard enough, Tim clenched his fists and headed toward the stairs. “You’re right, Bruce. You  _always_ do what’s right for  _everyone.”_

The sudden outburst didn’t seem to surprise Bruce, but deep down Tim was  _certain_ that it did.

“Where are you going, Tim?” Bruce asked sternly. “We’ll be leaving in half an hour—“

“I need to grab some other things, I’m sure you can wait,” Tim snapped, unable to keep the sourness from his voice.

Neither Bruce nor Dick attempted to stop him after that. And Tim had a feeling it was because their own anger at each other in the disagreement was bound to only grow after  _dear impressionable Tim_ wasn’t around anymore to get affected by it.

He didn’t care. He really  _did_ have something he  _had_ to do.

* * *

He knocked even though the door was open. It was the polite thing to do, or so he’d been told.

Cassandra was sitting on the window seat, legs pulled up, arms crossed over her knees, and face buried within the nook of her elbows so that all Tim could really see from her was the jet black hair reflecting the beams of sunrise hitting them.

When she didn’t move, Tim took the initiative and stepped into the unpersonalized yet still very  _Cassandra_ room. “This whole thing sucks,” he said to her sorrowfully. “You don’t deserve to be treated like this. I’m… I’m sorry it’s going on this way.”

For a moment, it didn’t look like Cass was going to react to his words at all, if she was even awake, but then, slowly, she withdrew more into herself, hiding in her suit as much as possible even without her mask on.

She wasn’t crying, though. Her shoulders did not heave, she was not breathing hard.

It reminded Tim of the night of the funeral. And that alone made him feel knotted up inside.

“Bruce still doesn’t know,” he tried to explain his rationale for bothering her after how horribly everything went on downstairs. “Cass, I didn’t tell him anything. So he doesn’t know about… about…” he lowered his voice and walked more toward her, just in case. “He doesn’t know about the Lazarus Pit from me. He doesn’t know that… that you’re  _numb._ Or how you feel about… everything. I’m sure he knows something’s up. He  _has_ to. He’s… Well, he’s the world’s greatest detective. But he’s got. A blindspot. A few of them. And I think you’ve always been in his blindspot in some way. He doesn’t… he doesn’t always like to accept that you’re not…”

Trailing off, Tim rubbed at his neck. He was getting nothing from Cass and he wasn’t even sure if he was supposed to or not, given the circumstances. She was hurt and he was part of the problem. He just couldn’t  _stand_ the thought of not fixing some things before they all got up and left.

“Not?” Cass said hoarsely.

Tim looked up and met Cass’ dark eyes. He had been wrong about her not having tears, even if the rest of her face was blank.

“I’m not…?” she urged.

Feeling even more awkward and on the spot, Tim shifted slightly and coughed into his fist. “Well… Bruce sometimes just… I think he doesn’t always accept that you’re not… really perfect. That you can have mistakes or make them now or that you aren’t one hundred percent okay even if you run yourself into the ground working too hard. He just has to think you’re…  _okay.”_

Cassandra squinted at him, roughly rubbing her tears away in one swipe of her gauntlet. “I’m… not perfect?” she clarified.

“Uh, no. I mean. You’re close. No, I don’t mean that. Not that—“ Tim face palmed and took a deep breath, collecting himself. “Cass, what I mean is that no one’s perfect. We’re human. That’s… part of life. I mean, you know that more than anyone—“

“I make… too many mistakes?” she asked almost angrily.

“No! I mean, you know more than anyone that everyone deserves a  _second chance,”_ he explained. “You know that life only means something if we’re allowed to work through our mistakes and make up for them. Right?”

She blinked at him before a broken little smile formed on her face. “You… learned that from…  _me?”_

“Still trying to learn it,” Tim admitted. “But I  _see it_ because of you. Which is why I know that if you just explained to Bruce what’s going on with you right now, he’d understand why you need to go with us—“

“No,” Cass said firmly.

“What?” Tim asked with a blink.

“I’m  _staying._ Here. In Gotham,” she said poking her finger out at the window. “Gotham…  _needs_ a Batman. Bruce is  _right.”_

Shifting uncomfortably, Tim exhaled sharply through his nose. Well… you keep saying that…”

“Because it’s true,” she stated.

“He’s human, too, Cass, but look, I don’t want to fight with you over him and methodology again,” Tim said, shaking his head. “We got into it more than enough when we were working in Blüdhaven. Let’s not revisit it.”

Cass’ all-seeing eyes were firmly on him, however. “You.  _You’re_ still mad at him,” she assessed.

“Yeah,” Tim admitted almost subconsciously. “I mean… yes, I am. But.” He looked down to his hands, closed his eyes and pretended he could still feel the debris he had lifted on that first night he wore the suit. “I think it’s my job to be mad at him sometimes. To be frustrated with what he does and how he does it.”

“It’s a stupid job,” Cass said flatly.

“Ha, well, there’s no one who knows that more than  _me,_ you can guarantee that,” Tim answered with a deep sigh. “But I get the hero worship, I get the inability to see when he’s wrong because that used to be me with Bruce, and with Dick. And with Barbara. I just had to grow up myself, see everyone around me as being imperfect and  _really_ understand what that meant. What it meant for  _all_ of us.”

There was still a lack of understanding in Cass’ eyes. She peered into Tim like he was a book written in esperanto. “You loved them less?” she asked. “Because of… mistakes… of… being  _human?”_

“No,” Tim answered almost too quickly. He shook his head for good measure. “No. I… I love them so much  _more._ Because I know when they make mistakes… it’s just because that’s what we all do at the end of the day. Because that’s what  _makes_ them human.” He looked at Cass curiously. “How, after everything, is that not how  _you_ see the world, too? I mean… Barbara told me about how you’re making them rehabilitate Lady Shiva. If they  _can._ And you don’t…”

“ _I_ think that,” Cass corrected, hugging her knees. “I…  _know_ that. I  _see_ that… but…” She looked back at Tim. “I see you. I see… _Shiva._ And I see… people.” She lowered her head, chin barely above her knees. “But… I don’t see… me. And other people,  _you_ and others… No one sees like me. No one but Shiva. No one but Cain. And they never saw me… human.”

Tim’s eyes widened with understanding. “Cass…”

“There is… a little voice inside your head… who tells you that you can be good… that you can be smart… that you can be…  _worthy,”_ Cass continued. “Sometimes it is…  _very_ quiet. But now… I don’t hear it at all.”

He looked at her intently. “I think you should tell someone this, Cass,” he urged. “I think… I think you might be… depressed… or the Lazarus Pit… I mean, haven’t you felt this before? Is it like anything else?”

Cass stared off, eyes overcast with an emotion unclear to Tim just yet. “Losing Steph,” she answered. “And Brenda. And… yes. But now it’s been longer. And I have tried very hard to make people…  _happy_ with me. But. I don’t think it will ever work now.”

Tim felt a lump in his chest and he approached Cass even closer. “Can… Is there anything  _I_ can do?” he asked her very softly.

“Yes,” Cass answered before looking back at him with a very small but still wry smile. There were tears carefully held back in her eyes. “What… you’re doing. Right now. Thank you,” she answered.

Once again that week, Tim had no idea what was the  _right_ response exactly, but he caved to his first emotional drive. And he hugged Cass so tight he might have bruised another person.

“Cass?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” she answered.

“About your scars… you being worried about them being gone,” he continued. “I was thinking… you know chalkboards? Like what people write on?”

“No,” she answered quickly but curiously.

“Well… they’re these boars and they have… words or drawings — whatever people want on them written in chalk,” he explained, poorly. “But the thing about chalkboards is that sometimes if you write too much on them, you run out of room and you have to turn the board over, to the clean side without any marks on it. Then you can start writing something new.”

Holding Tim back slightly, Cassandra squinted at him. “Why…?”

“Because maybe you shouldn’t think of it like you lost your scars, just that you’re starting new, the board’s clean, everything is still there, they still happened, you just don’t need them around anymore to remember them by,” Tim explained. “So… you know, don’t be too torn up about it. Or something, I’m mumbling,” he laughed awkwardly before rubbing his eyes.

“A second chance,” Cass clarified.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Tim responded, looking at her. “Does… does that help?”

“ _You_ help, Tim,” she smiled at last. “Like always.”

* * *

By the time Tim was making his way out of the Manor, Bruce had apparently already loaded the Mercedes they were taking and had it running in the drive. He was sitting with his sunglasses on despite the fact that the sun had only barely begun to rise in Gotham. The entire scenario was almost too surreal for Tim to take as real. But it  _was_ the life he had chosen to enter what seemed like years and years ago.

Dick was pretending to be a bit more civil in the matter, sitting back against the door of the passenger side and waiting with eyes trained on the door. The moment he saw Tim approaching, he uncrossed his ankles and straightened up his own jacket.

“Hey, did you get what you needed?” Dick asked, trying for almost  _too_ casual given the circumstances.

“Not really,” Tim answered, tightening his grip on the drawstring bag he had pulled over his shoulder mostly for show. There were only a few spare items he quickly grabbed from his room and none of them were necessities. “Got enough.”

There was a look of understanding in Dick’s eyes as he nodded his head. It was more compassion and understanding in a gesture than Tim would have been able to manage with years of practice. “It’ll work out, no matter what you remembered or forgot,” he assured Tim, walking with Tim around the car as if to get in the back with him.

If Bruce cared about the gesture he didn’t let it show at all.

“If you say so,” Tim said back lowly. He paused once again and bit his lip. He studied Dick rigorously before the older vigilante could get around to looking back at him. “Dick, are you bringing your suit?”

“Yeah,” Dick said reflexively. “Aren’t you? I mean… what  _else_ could this be about?”

Tim frowned. He wasn’t sure if there was even an answer to that question. He tugged on his bag’s drawstrings. “Bruce isn’t. I know all the ways he packs for equipment and it’s… none of it is coming with us. It’s weird. How can I bring the Robin suit if… I mean what  _else_ is this about if it’s not…”

He could not finish any of the questions as the mere idea if them not having answers was enough to send a chill through to Tim’s very core.

“I…  _well._ I mean, we can’t get too ahead of ourselves,” Dick assured him. “Besides, if it’s  _not_ about what we are with the suits, it’s still about what we are  _without_ them. And that’s the sort of thing that actually matters.”

Taking a deep breath, Tim opened his car door and slid on in. There was no good way to break it to Dick that he was not so sure what  _any_ of them were to each other without the suits anymore. Not as long as Bruce was in  _whatever_ funk was making him act the way he was. And that was simply the end of  _that._


	8. A Detective Without Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took a while but Cass chapters always come out a bit thicker and more in-depth than Tim chapters. CAN’T IMAGINE WHY. But it’s finally here and I can’t thank you all enough for your patience!
> 
> Special thanks to @mitchthebat and @secretlystephaniebrown on tumblr, ffnet, and AO3 for the feedback and support!

There was no confidence in Cass’ own voice as she read out the words. There  _should_ have been. After all she had struggled through, after how hard they had worked in the last few days to make up for all the time they were  _about_ to lose — Cass  _should_ have found confidence in her own words. But still the tremble remained. The thoughtful pauses.

“She…  _sells…_ s…s… _seeeee_ shells… at the…  _seeeeee…_ sh… sh…” Cass stopped herself and took a breath, closing her eyes. She  _knew_ those letters. She could put them together. She could parse the sounds, but when put together it was so  _hard._ So hard to— Her eyes snapped open and Cass looked reluctantly toward Helena.

The Huntress was taking notes, eyes on her clipboard rather than Cassandra. In the first few lessons that hadn’t been the case, she was very firm in watching Cassandra, encouraging her whenever necessary. And Cass used that to her advantage — reading Helena’s responses so carefully and so quickly she hardly had a stutter in reading.

Somehow Helena caught on. Cassandra hedged her bets on Barbara informing her of Cass’ abilities and how Cass could put them to creative use in order to avoid the frustratingly difficult tasks awarded to her.

It was  _such_ an annoyance to be known so well by someone so determined to parent her where Cassandra’s own parents had never even bothered before.

Resigned to the fact that she was not going to get a response from Helena until she was done with her reading, Cass took another breath and read the sentence again, out loud. But faster, to make up for the waver that existed no matter what efforts she put into subduing it.

“She sells s-seashells at the…  _seashore,”_ Cass finally read out loud.

“Very good, Cassandra,” Helena finally said, snapping her pen closed and uncrossing her legs as she looked up to meet Cass’ gaze. “You just have to keep reminding yourself, this isn’t a  _race_. You can take your time sounding things out if you have to until you’re more confident saying them. There’s no problem with doing that.

Cass scowled. “Do…  _you_ sound it all out?”

“No, I don’t,” Helena responded flatly. “But I’m not you. I have been reading and writing for  _much_ longer, which means I have a  _lot_ of practice. It would be like—“

“Someone in self-defense wanting to train with Shiva,” Cass sighed, her eyes rolling all the way back in her head as she fell back and rocked against her chair. She had heard that particular sentiment at  _least_ a thousand times in the weeks that she had been tutored. And hearing it on the very last night that she would have with them was more  _aggravating_ than anything else.

“You might be tired of hearing it, but that doesn’t make it less true,” Helena answered. “Learning language arts isn’t a race, and that’s the bottom line. As you get better, you’ll become faster, just like anything else, but the important part isn’t that you read at a certain speed right now, it’s that you understand the  _content_ of what you’re reading. It’s just another way to communicate — with others, with ideas, with… just about anything.”

Folding her arms, Cassandra looked skeptically at Helena. “Who is she?”

Helena blinked. “Who is who?”

“ _She?”_ Cass stressed.

“She  _who,_ Cassie?” Helena pressed.

“She!  _She—“_ Cassandra picked up the workbook she had been reading from and pointed at the sentence they had been practicing. “Who is  _she?_ Why… sell  _seashells?_ Is she  _important?_ Why do we need to know?”

For a moment, Helena looked utterly baffled. “Cass, there’s no… This isn’t about a person. It’s just a sentence that’s meant to challenge how you read.”

Throwing her hands in the air, Cass let out a growl. “You said… the important part is…  _understanding what it’s about!_ I thought—“

“It’s about  _learning,”_ Helena argued. “Sometimes when you read, yes, it gives you information you need and it might be about people or cases or anything else in the world. But the purpose of what  _we’re_ doing is that I’m teaching you so you’re learning. That’s the only thing you’re supposed to learn from the sentence.”

Annoyed and exhausted mentally, Cass threw back her head. “I’m  _done,”_ she declared for the night.

“But we’ve only gotten through…” Helena paused and began gathering her books. “Okay. You’re right. We should break. You’ve done very good lately and I know you can get discouraged when we move up reading levels. Which is  _fine_ , I promise you. I’ll just adjust the lesson plan I’m leaving for you while we’re away.”

While Cass knew she should have thanked Helena for understanding, she didn’t  _feel_ the sentiment enough to give it. She only watched her instructor quickly gather her things before glancing off toward the cockpit’s door. The massive jet had been much homier before they were making sure to buckle things down and hide things away for inevitable travel.

Rising to her feet, Cass looked back to Helena and pointed toward the door. “Oracle?” she asked.

“ _Barbara_ is in there, yeah,” Helena replied with an arched eyebrow. “You two… okay?”

“We’ll see,” Cass said before marching toward the door.

Barbara was the same as always, sitting in the navigator’s chair with her eyes locked on the screens around her. Her eyes were fierce and thoughtful — plotting. There were so many words and so many of them  _moving so fast_ on the screen that had it been anyone else, Cassandra would have not believed they were reading a single one of them.

Thoughts of how much of a  _liar_ Helena had to be to say that speed didn’t matter with reading. It was amazing how inadequate a few moments with Barbara could make Cassandra feel after even hours of drilling.

It didn’t take long for Barbara to finish up, however, and the scrolling stopped as she turned in her chair to face Cass.

“I was hoping you’d stop by before leaving. I was going to have to come to the Manor in the morning if you didn’t,” Barbara greeted her with a genuine, though tired, smile. “Probably still will.”

Cass looked at her before glancing toward the maps around Barbara’s work desk. “Not the one leaving… just everyone else.”

When she looked up, Cass could see how hard the words had hit Barbara she was looking off, chewing on the knuckles of one of her fingers. But it wasn’t going to be the kind of guilt that would make anyone change their plans. And Cass wasn’t even sure she wanted the plans to be changed.

She just needed it to hurt someone to leave her as much as it hurt her to be left, just for once.

“I didn’t know about Bruce’s plans to leave. And I  _definitely_ didn’t know he planned to leave you here,” Barbara assured her. “I don’t know  _what_ he was thinking. Or even if he  _was_ thinking. He’s so…  _off_ lately and I can’t…” She stopped herself and shook her head firmly. “No, this isn’t about Bruce.” Her eyes shot back up to Cass, holding Cass’ gaze with their intensity. “It’s about you, Cassandra. The way it should be. And… I’ve been thinking about it… You should probably come with us. You’ve never really been part of a team long term before. I know Dinah would love to have you, and it’d be easier for both you and Hel to continue your lessons if you stayed with us. It’d be good for you to see more of the world than just Gotham—“

For a moment, Cass was surprised. She had not been expecting the offer. But whatever emotion the offer  _should_ have given her was obviously not there. And without those flighty emotions, she could cut through to the meaning of the over abundance of words everyone used. Even quicker than she used to.

“If I go… Shiva would never learn,” Cass pointed out, eyes hardening on Barbara. “You would… have to take her off the team.  _That_ would break our promise.”

“Cass,” Barbara sighed, taking off her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose.

Slowly, Cassandra blinked at Barbara. Took in the heaviness of her sigh, the weariness in her shoulders. There was disappointment there. She had wanted Cassandra to go with them, she really had.

She had  _also_ wanted the relief of not taking Shiva as her responsibility.

“It’s a  _promise,”_ Cassandra reminded her.

“Your need to make Shiva see  _the light_ is going to leave you bitterly disappointed, Cassandra,” Barbara argued, looking back up at Cass fiercely. “She isn’t  _half_ the person you are.”

“Every person is the  _same,”_ Cass argued, eyes narrowed. “She can  _change._ Because…  _I_ changed. Okay?”

“Not everyone makes the  _choice_ to change, Cassandra, and it  _has_ to be a choice,” Barbara pleaded. “I know you believe everyone deserves a second chance. You helped  _me_ to believe that everyone deserves a second chance. But if you don’t grant people the autonomy to make that decision themselves, then when they  _don’t_ meet your expectations, it’s going to crush you more than if you had never tried. And you  _can’t_ believe that what you did — which was  _not_ your fault — could ever measure up to the conscious death and destruction which Shiva knowingly unleashes on everyone—“

Taken aback, Cass opened her mouth but found no words to match the surprise which overtook her with Barbara’s words. Not until her mentor stopped and Cass felt the one thing that always stirred itself back up from the numbness.

_Rage._

“So… now promises don’t matter? Because they’re…  _hard?”_ Cass demanded angrily. “Because… people aren’t as good as  _you_ and as good as  _Bruce._ We can forgive  _you_ … and  _me…_ but we’re  _exceptions.”_ She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ve  _seen_ death, Barbara. It doesn’t have…  _exceptions._ Only life  _changes.”_ She looked at Barbara at last. “That’s what… I want you and Batman to change.”

Barbara’s eyes were moving the same way they did when they read quickly on a screen, as if even her brain could write out a response without paper while Cass struggled to make letters and numbers face the right way.

“You think I’m judging you,” Barbara finally surmised. “You think Bruce is judging you, and that’s the reason we’re going away. That it’s because we’re disappointed or think you’re wrong. And that’s not the case, Cassandra. I’m  _not_ judging you. And I can’t speak for Bruce but I fully believe that his actions lately… they’re because we’re  _flawed_ , Cass. Because we make mistakes and have to be forgiven for them too. And I’m sorry that you feel like we need to learn this lesson from you — and maybe we’re right. Maybe we do. But it’s not because we’re judging you. It’s the opposite. It’s because we  _love_ you, Cassandra.”

“You love me. You just won’t keep your…  _promises_ to me,” she folded he arms and looked away.

“No, I’m keeping it,” Barbara sighed, sounding worn down and resigned more than pleased about her circumstance. “I’m keeping it. I’ll oversee Shiva becoming a better person and… and leave you here. To protect Gotham.”

Cass glanced back at her. “Good.”

There was still a frown on Barbara’s face. “Shiva doesn’t deserve the sacrifices you’re making for her, Cass. I don’t know that you can fully comprehend how different the two of you are.”

“You’re wrong,” Cass said firmly. “You… don’t know how… much we’re the  _same._ Trust me.”

Inhaling sharply, Barbara forced a nod. “Okay.”

Cassandra ignored the way tears were welling up in Barbara’s eyes as she leaned forward and kissed her mentor’s forehead. “Okay.”

* * *

Before the signal was even lit for the first time that night, Cassandra felt the length of her patrol catching up with her.

She had known of emotional baggage and how exhausting it could be prior to the Lazarus Pit, but since her revival it seemed as though any forceful emotion that bubbled its way to the surface was equally exhausting. Emotions could make tired what bones and muscles never did for her.

Still, the moment she saw the signal in the sky, her heart pounded with the knowledge that it was for  _her._ That it was  _her signal_ to answer and that her first opportunity to truly prove herself as Batman’s stand in had come up.

She swung through Gotham with somewhat reckless abandon, growing more eager as the familiar path to the police department opened itself up to her.

Forty feet away and swinging through the sky, Cassandra could already make out the figure of Jim Gordon standing in front of the signal, stalwart and stiff. He was making a show of standing without a cane those days and his fingers twitched at his side without a cigarette. But taking back his position as a leader in the GCPD had come with requirements he was forced to fulfill once again.

Cassandra could very much sympathize.

She landed as silently as she could on the rooftop, her grappling hook recoiling quickly before she tucked her arm under her cape and the grappling gun into her belt under its cover. She slowly rose to her feet and stood at full height in front of Jim Gordon, keeping her gaze narrowed on him and trying, desperately, to not think of him as the man who made a production of getting mashed potatoes stuck in his mustache at Barbara’s Thanksgiving dinner last year, or the kind man who continued to thank her for saving him during the  _No Man’s Land_ crisis that felt like just so many, many years ago.

Behind his glasses, Jim raised a heavy eyebrow at her and looked her over. He was expecting something, perhaps an introduction or a clarification as to why she was there instead of  _anyone else_ since they had never interacted like this without someone else to buffer before.

No Batman. No Robin. No Nightwing.

Only…

“Batgirl,” he finally broke the silence. “Thank you for coming.”

She nodded carefully. There was a word — a  _title_ she was supposed to call him by. All the others did. She knew it was important. That it… was  _respect_ and  _trust._ He wore it the way she did her mask. But her brain still ached from all the vocabulary earlier in the night and she was  _tired_ and her  _brain hurt_ from searching for the proper word.

“Right,” he said, reaching up and fiddling with the glasses on his face. “Is… someone else…?”

“You have me…  _Sir,”_ she attempted to assure him.

“Okay,” Jim continued, mustache twitching in discomfort. Not from mashed potatoes. “We have a string of murders we have been dealing with. Our people are stumped, and since they seem fairly ritualistic we’re already negotiating with the Bureau to have some specialists look things over. Obviously, I’d still like for your own special perspective… since you work with Batman. And he usually has a larger thumb on the pulse of the Underground than anyone from the capital is going to.”

Beneath her mask, Cassandra exhaled sharply and couldn’t help but form a frown. Yes.  _Words._ So many of them.

After an uncomfortable silence, Jim straightened his glasses again. “It’s… pretty gruesome stuff. I’m not sure if you’ve worked on something like this before… but we need to find who’s committing these murders. And we have to stop them.”

A smirk finally found its way back to Cass’ face and she punched her own palm. “No worries,” she promised him. “I’m… a  _detective.”_

That seemed to do little to appease Jim as he reached out with a file he had been keeping in his free hand. “Right. Well. I know you aren’t really… I mean you’re kids. But you’re trained by him. So I trust…” he trailed off. “I’d still like your opinion on the case.”

Cassandra reached out and took the file, flipping it open with her thumb and glancing at a lot of the pages.

 _Lots_ of words. More on a page than even Barbara had been reading on her screens. Words longer and with more syllables than Helena had even begun to teach her. The sort of thing that, once confronted out in the wild, caused Cassandra’s insides to twist in discomfort and inadequacy.  _Maybe she should have stayed for the whole lesson with Helena after all._

All that out of the way, however, Cassandra buried the feelings and took a breath. She was prepared, as Batgirl, for difficult measures. She rarely worked with others in the past, and to confront such issues was not new either. She hid the file beneath her cape.

That seemed to make Jim’s eyebrows raise in alarm.

“I am on it,” she assured him, switching out the file for her grappling gun and turning to leave the rooftop.

“I… Well I figured we could go over the case together…” Gordon was continuing, a little more than confused by that point. “You seem to be doing things differently.”

“No time,” Cass half-lied, shooting off her grappling hook and leaping off the rooftop, files held close against her side.

“Those were the only printed copies. Everything else is digital. It was for me— Ah, alright then,” Gordon tried uselessly to call after her. “I suppose I was going to have to get used to using computers for everything at some point.”

* * *

The homing beacon on her newly customized Batcycle worked with the sort of efficiency that Cassandra was sure Tim only dreamed of with his Redbird. It was already pulling around the corner and into the alley she had directed it toward by the time she was landing down within.

With the motor rumbling, Cassandra glanced down to the files she had taken from Gordon. For a moment, she considered flipping through the files more intently, actually soaking in the words that she could, trying to work them out. It was enough to make her hesitate in her step before she shook her head and moving toward the back of the Batcycle.

Part of the modifications that Barbara had built into the bike for Cassandra involved a file scanner, something that was supposed to accurately digitize the letters and numbers of any papers or clues she would find. With them in the database of the Batcomputer, Cassandra would only have to go to the Cave and have the monitor read them out loud for her.

It was the best solution, she told herself  _constantly._

Swallowing dryly, Cass fit the file into the compartment of the Batcycyle which immediately lit up in the signature Oracle green. It brought almost as much comfort to Cassandra as it had shame, still she closed her eyes and took a breath. She was a  _detective._ She was going to be able to do this. Alone.

She just needed to do it  _her way._

Just as Cassandra prepared herself to get on the Batcycle and race back to the Cave and whatever snack that Alfred had ready for her, Cassandra was pulled away from all her thoughts by a mortified, blood curdling scream only a short distance away.

Alarmed, Cass moved fast, shooting her grappling gun before her body had even turned and double pulling on the trigger to send herself jettisoning up past the building’s edge. She flew through the sky a short distance before ending her arc, right foot extended first to land in the opposite alley.

Her speed and precision were beyond compare, but the screaming had already stopped, and the woman who had unleashed the scream was already at the edge of the alley as Cass landed.

Confused, Cassandra took in the sight.

There was a husky looking man, laying in a heap on the alley’s pavement, moaning and groaning, with his face already swelling and red from a hit. A nearly perfectly delivered punch directly to the corner of his jawline, surely shattering it given the amount of pressure that it apparently had had.

When Cass looked back to the woman in the alley, it was clear even with a casual glance that the petite woman shaking and nearly vomiting had not had the training or power to deliver such a hit.

Cass could hear her motorcycle rumbling on idle just an alley away, scans no doubt completed, but for her, she knew that Batgirl had just found a second mystery to test her detective skills on.

It seemed that she was not patrolling Gotham alone…


	9. The Desert of Fools

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I’m apologizing for a long wait and thanking you all for the support and patience! We’ve got a Tim chapter but I think everyone’s in for a surprise with the directions it will go ; ) 
> 
> Special thanks to @gordon88, @mitchthebat, @secretlystephaniebrown, @chimaerakitten, @the-gible-squad and Kiyomisa on tumblr, ffnet, and AO3 for the feedback and support!

At some point in his life, Tim had stopped asking what his destination was when he got on airplanes with certain people. He accepted his ticket, got on the WE private jet, followed Bruce and Dick down the halls of international airports, and took his ticket for the next connecting flight as they got on smaller and smaller passenger planes.

He only read what their next point was when he got the ticket in his hands.

When he was younger and he still lived in a world where Jack and Janet were  _Dad and Mom_ still, the idea of how they could go weeks or even  _months_ without stopping their travels, even if it was for work, was utterly baffling to Tim. He was young, and he could not imagine wanting so badly to be away from home and from Gotham that he wouldn’t even register how long it had been since he saw  _his family._

A part of him, leaning against the smallest passenger plane’s window, looking out into the night sky, couldn’t help but wonder whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that he felt closer to his parents in death than he ever had in life.

He wasn’t paying attention when Dick’s elbow nudged his arm, drawing Tim’s attention from the window at last and instead to the magazine that Dick was holding up to Tim’s face. It was such an unexpected interaction that Tim could only blink a few times at his mentor and brother.

“You look like you could use some reading to put you to sleep,” Dick explained, handing the magazine over.

“Reading doesn’t make me sleepy,” Tim informed him, looking to the page Dick had left the magazine turned to all the same. He paused and looked suspiciously at the former Boy Wonder. “Why do you want me to see an advertisement from Lex Corp that they’re artificially giving people super powers?” he asked.

“Is that the page I left it on?” Dick hummed, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Hm, dunno. Quite a mystery to keep us preoccupied with, though, isn’t it?”

“It’ll end in disaster, what’s the mystery about it?” Tim asked, eyebrow raised as he looked the page over. “Everything Lex Luthor touches is warped and doomed.”

That got a laugh out of Dick, though he didn’t open his eyes.

Tim was filled with relief that the other vigilante hadn’t looked at him, else he might have seen the full body flinch Tim said after the words left his mouth.  _Everything he touches is warped and doomed._

For the first time in his life, Tim felt like he had something in common with the world’s greatest criminal mastermind.

* * *

The last place in the world they probably should have been was Morocco. There were tensions heating up around Biyala and Black Adam had taken over Khandaq as well as made a family to match Captain Marvel’s. And that was just what Tim could gleam from his broken broken French and the headlines on a magazine stand.

“Has Bruce said why we’re here yet?” Tim asked Dick without really turning away from the newspapers. “He’s not really the type for spontaneity.  _Usually._ ”

Everything about the trip, about the location, about  _them_ was obscenely off and Tim didn’t know how he felt about any of it. In truth, he probably should have felt a touch  _worse_ about the circumstances.

Should have. Would have.

Cassandra had been left alone with Alfred in Gotham, and really not given a proper reasoning for it. Yet Tim continued to feel the twist and turns of his stomach wishing desperately  _why couldn’t that have been him._

He heard a noise like something ruffling from a nearby stand and he turned enough to see a floor-to-ceiling high bird cage made of wood, filled to the brim with exotic birds, all clamoring and fighting each other.

There were too many of them.

He focused on the red breasted bird with black wings and knew, somewhere deep down, that the answer as to why it was Cassandra in Gotham and not him was because if he was alone, if they let him be, he could go back.

He was  _at the point_ where it was still a possibility. Without Kon without Steph without his father or anyone else in the entire damn world, the question became a matter of  _when_ he would quit and not  _would._

Tim, the boy who asked to be Robin, who  _begged_ to be Robin, to bring his hero from the brink of the darkness he had sunk into over the desert fields that were only part of a continent away from them right there and then. And he couldn’t remember why he would put on the cape without Batman’s urgings.

The joy was gone.  _Tim’s_ joy was gone.

And he couldn’t understand how anyone else around him could still have their own.

After a few long moments of waiting for an answer that didn’t come, Tim turned around finally and looked for Dick and his signature blue cast and arm sling. Dick was also looking at something — or, rather,  _someone_. That someone being Bruce on the other side of the market. Tim walked up to Dick’s side and looked at him for a moment before tilting his head and squinting. “Did you hear me?”

“Hm?” Dick asked, looking down to Tim. “Sorry, Li’l Bro. I was just… well, looking out for Bruce. He’s off his game.”

Leveling an even glare at Dick, Tim waited for the irony to watch up with him. It never did and he sighed, crossing his arms. “Really? Hadn’t noticed…”

“Really?” Dick asked back. When he finally looked directly at Tim, Dick furrowed his brows and looked rather displeased.

The concentration on him made Tim feel a weird itch through his body and he rubbed at his neck awkwardly. “What?”

“Are  _you_ feeling okay?” Dick asked seriously. “You’re not acting yourself either. And… I guess the funeral wasn’t that long ago and…”

Before Tim could filter his own mouth he glanced back to the newspaper stand. “ _Which_ funeral?”

There was a heavy silence for a moment then Tim looked back to Dick, regretting his gruff commentary.

“Tim…” Dick said, voice haunted with concern.

“Please. Just… Can we  _please_ not do this right here right now?” Tim all but begged.

“Do  _what?”_ Dick asked critically. “Tell you I”m worried? Tell you I’m—“

“Yes. This. Whatever  _this_ is,” Tim snapped back.

“When then?” Dick asked. “You were a complete shut in back in Gotham, you ignored Bruce and me on the flights.”

“Dick,” Tim began in exasperation, running his hands down the sides of his face. “I cannot  _begin_ to express how much this can’t happen right now.”

“That’s the problem, you  _can’t_ express. You can’t express  _anything,”_ Dick retorted, waggling a finger in his face.

“You’re making a scene,” Tim fought back.

“ _Someone_ has to,” Dick snapped.

“Then go try to make  _Bruce_ express himself,” Tim growled.

Dick shook his head. “Sorry, but I’m well aware of lost causes, believe it or not. I’ve been working on cracking that nut for the last, what, almost twenty years now? I make  _progress_ with Bruce.  _You?_ You I’m making  _preventive measures.”_

“Yeah, those would have been helpful before this last year,” Tim responded coldly.

He immediately regretted the words as they escaped his mouth, but at the same time, the flicker of guilt and plain  _hurt_ that shone in Dick’s eyes for a moment when he heard that response  _almost_ made Tim want to savor it all.

They stood together awkwardly, looking at each other with a loss for how the conversation could possibly continue when they were saved by the most unexpected of things.

_Bruce._

“Dick,” Bruce called in his very  _Broosiest_ voice, carrying it over the crowds in the bizarre. He even gave a dramatic arm wave as if they weren’t all incredibly aware of each other’s positions at all times. “Come over here and tell me what you think of this rug! I think it’s authentic!”

“What the hell?” Tim asked, squinting his eyes. “That’s…  _weird.”_

“Very,” Dick agreed. “Stand around here a bit, there must be a reason he wants us canvased.”

“Sure,” Tim replied as Dick walked away. There was some disappointment in Tim’s chest, realizing they weren’t going to come anywhere close to finishing that conversation — that whatever genuine emoting Dick was giving him in that moment could drop the  _second_ Bruce needed something even it was a  _nut_ he’d been trying to crack sine he was eight years old.

Tim also wished his emotions could straighten themselves out enough to at  _least_ be consistent.

Instead he pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. He had to  _center_ himself. Or something like that.  _Something_ basic that would put the whole world back into order.

He just had forgotten whatever that basic thing was.

After he gathered enough of his senses, Tim looked to Bruce and Dick again. They were huddled over the rugs that Bruce had mentioned but Tim knew better than to believe that they were talking about thread count while basically over top one another. There must have been something that got Bruce’s attention.

Maybe it was the reason they were there.

The times were hard, difficult even. And more than a little crazy. And Tim was considering what an awful time it was for the most visible heroes in the world —  _Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman_ — to all be unseen after such a Crisis, after so much death and destruction. It was hard to consider who the normal people were supposed to look up to in the times.

Which was why Lex Luthors were making headlines about creating new superheroes and Black Adams were being hailed as saviors instead of tyrants.

When he looked back to the newspapers almost subconsciously, Tim noticed a figure slip behind the cage of exotic birds in a rather quick and intentional fashion. If it was meant to not draw his attention, it desperately failed.

Tim studiously looked at the newspapers in French and Arabic, but his attention was on his peripheral vision and the man standing just on the other side of the birdcage watching him. And he was  _definitely_ watching Tim.

Trying his best to look the part of the bored, jaded modern teenager, Tim adjusted his baseball cap and reached into his pocket to pull out his cellphone. He made it seem as though he was scrolling through his options, but in reality he was setting up a secure connection to Bruce and Dick’s similarly supped up cells. He would be quick to tip them off to the fact that someone was scoping them out when he slowly stopped.

Staring at his phone, Tim almost could hear a ringing in his ears as he put the pieces together, painfully slow. Then he looked toward Bruce and Dick and how they were looking his way but not at him as they talked.

They knew. Somehow they — or at least Bruce — had spotted their tagalong before Tim. And beyond that, they had gone away from him to discuss what to do about it. Away from Tim. But  _why?_

He struggled with the full picture until someone bumped against his back and rather than move away immediately stood there. Tim’s skin crawled at his space being so closely invade and he couldn’t help but tense and try to lean forward, away from the person, but a thin hand with ornate, painted nails held onto his shoulder. Unlike most women in the bizarre, however, there were no rings or bangles.

“Easy, little Robin,” a familiar voice said softly.

_Talia al Ghul._

“Okay,” Tim said softly in return.

“My beloved and I cannot be seen together in public. Not here where the eyes of the serpents come from any separate heads. Some my father’s. Many not,” she informed him in hushed tones. “So please let him know, I will be where the moon touches the dunes at midnight, in the same tent where we spoke eternal vows.”

Tim absorbed the information. “So you’re still not with your father?” he asked.

“Things have not changed between any of us since last we met,” she answered. “You have protective instincts. That is admirable for a man your age. It will keep you alive.”

“Guess we’ll find out,” Tim replied, glancing over his shoulder the moment Talia released his shoulder. He watched her, in full dress, disappear into the crowds. His eyes only narrowed as he strung things more and more together.

Bruce and Dick moved quickly to rejoin him after that but Tim was beginning to feel himself boil.

“Thank you, Tim,” Bruce said in hushed tones. “Dick and Talia do not have the fondest history with each other.”

“In so many terms,” Dick muttered sourly.

Tim looked at both of them for a long moment then pulled down his cap to hide his eyes from him. He could feel the quiver in his lips about to give too much of what he was feeling. “I want to be notified the next time I’m used as bait,” Tim said darkly. “It’s the least you can do.”

“Tim, if we thought there was danger,” Dick began, but Bruce stopped him.

“It was a split second calculation, Tim. It won’t happen again,” Bruce promised.

Tim nodded, but inside his blood continued to boil.

It was going to happen again.  _It happened all the time._ And he was tired of it. As tired as he was of everything that had to do with his double life anymore.

* * *

It shouldn’t have surprised Tim that what they found in the desert was a fight. And yet he  _was_ taken aback.

Reaching the exact spot where the moon touches the dunes at midnight was apparently a cryptic way of leading them to the center of a desert with only the supplies that they could carry with them. Which was suspicious itself before Bruce raised one arm and halted Tim and Dick behind him.

Tim struggled a bit with his camel, but with a single pet from Dick, the animal finally obeyed and left them both standing side by side on the edge of a dune as Bruce dismounted and walked to the center of a suspicious looking plain of sand.

Barely containing himself, Tim kept from mentioning that it wasn’t a good idea for Bruce to walk where his feet sunk into the sand halfway up his shins. It was something he shouldn’t have had to tell the Batman — about how sand traps and even quick sand worked. Especially at night where what water was in the desert would collect in its barren lands. He  _shouldn’t_ have to. But lately…

Both Tim and Dick jerked back in surprise when Bruce dropped to his knees, digging through the sand, as if he knew exactly what to expect. Then, he let out a grunt of satisfaction, slowly getting back to his feet with a scimitar in hand.

“Oh, of course. Of course there would be a sword hidden in the sand in the middle of the desert. How could we not see  _that_ coming,” Dick muttered sarcastically. He took pause and glanced around. “Wait… I remember this place. This is where—“

They emerged so suddenly that Tim had hardly turned from looking in Dick’s direction to see how they came out of the sand. There was half a dozen of them, cloaked from head to toe in rags, their hands extended toward Bruce showing off the eyeballs which stared at him from their finger tips.

“What the hell?” Tim asked out loud.

“For what it’s worth, I didn’t get it when I was Robin either,” Dick offered.

“No, that’s not worth much, because this is  _weird,”_ Tim argued just before the men began fighting Bruce. “Talia set us up! We’ve got to help him—“

Before Tim could do anything drastic, Dick grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back. “Talia doesn’t work that way, loathe as I am to say it. And if Bruce came all this way… well, he came for  _something_ and we’re not ones to tell him what he does or doesn’t need.”

With only a moment’s hesitation, Tim jerked his shoulders back away from Dick, shaking his head. “You’re wrong. Robin’s whole  _job_ is to tell Batman when he’s gone the wrong way. It’s our job to set him right when he’s wrong. The light to Batman’s darkness— that’s what  _you_ called Robin, remember?”

Dick seemed unsurprised and rather impressed. “And as a Robin it’s your job, then,” he said, not questioned. “And you have to have faith he won’t let you down either. Sometimes you have to have faith that he’s already doing the right thing.”

“i can’t,” Tim said simply. “I don’t have that faith. I’ve been let down.”

A pained expression crossed Dick’s face as he heard Tim’s response. “Oh, Tim,” he said with such weight and gravity.

It was all for nothing, though, because Tim turned in time to see Bruce’s devastating victory against the strange, ten-eyed men. He was breathing hard, but for the first time in months, Tim could see a  _smile_ on Bruce’s face as he dropped down to his knees and leaned his head back to face the cloudless sky. “The darkness is gone,” he said, voice level and normal despite his words being something that Tim would have pegged on hysteria. “I am reborn.”

Tim looked to Dick who was also raising a brow at the statement before snapping his head to look across the dunes. When Tim followed the look, he saw Talia and her guards as well, on horses, watching over Bruce.

“I must know, Beloved,” Talia called down to him as she steadied her steed. “Was the man or the bat reborn? And are either the keeper of my heart?”

Bruce looked in her direction but said nothing.

Dick sighed and rubbed his face with his good hand. “Just say yes, Bruce. Don’t drag us all the way into the middle of a desert for a fight with the League of Assassins.”

Tim tried to have faith that that was not going to happen, but it was as difficult as what Dick had asked of him before.

And if Bruce was  _reborn_  as someone even more unfamiliar to Tim than the Bruce of the last year, well, that was a whole new set of issues.


	10. A Detective's Currency

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thiiiiisssssss was an emotional chapter to write, not going to lie. I have a lot of Feelings about the Infinite Crisis/52 era and what things happened there. Obviously. I’m writing this fic. But this one’s where we’re finally getting to the… well, super painful stuff on Cass’ end. My poor darling. 
> 
> Special thanks to @mitchthebat, @secretlystephaniebrown, @chimerakitten, Osamatsu, and kiyomisa on tumblr, ffnet, and AO3 for the feedback and support!

“Lacerations found on victims showed identical stroke patterns. Blade is believed to be a dual edged weapon, not a carving knife or other appliance. Exact centimeters of length of chest laceration over the sternum from Victim One to Victim Six include: thirty-five centimeters, thirty-four and a half centimeters, thirty-four and a quarter centimeters, thirty-five and—“

Cassandra sat, perched like a bird on the edge of the computer seat. She was looking at the main monitor of the Batcomputer with some amount of apprehension, her brain mulling over the facts being read to her from the scanned police files over and over again.

She was still in her suit, cape draped over her, elbows firm on her knees. But she’d pulled her mask off some time ago. The sweat on her brow was getting to her and it was easier to hear the computer without the distraction of her cowl.

But it was  _still_ a monotoned computer droning over very flat, though detailed, notes on the cases which the Commissioner had asked her to look over. There was no difference in tone, no hesitation before particularly dire details for Cassandra to clue in on.

Just the words. And the words were both descriptive and terrifyingly brief for someone whose relationship with  _words_ was still strained at best.

To try and concentrate even more on what she was hearing, Cassandra closed her eyes and leaned toward the speakers, forcing herself to only listen to the computer.

It wasn’t helping.

“My word,” Alfred declared as he walked down the steps from the Manor. “These crimes seem positively  _gruesome_.”

Eyes snapping open, Cassandra glanced over in Alfred’s direction and she tilted her head at him curiously. He hadn’t even heard most of the details that she had but his ashen face seemed to tell he had more of an intimate reaction to the cold facts than Cassandra had had yet. Her frustration, as a result, only  _mounted._

“Have to solve it,” Cassandra explained determinedly before looking back to the screen and waiting for the words to escape the speakers.

Quietly, Alfred set down a tray of food on the console to Cassandra’s right — it smelled like a wonderful soup, some oyster crackers, and an orange juice. Smells that weren’t strong enough that Cassandra could immediately identify them, of course. But when her brain was  _desperate_ for anything else to occupy its time with other than translating words into visuals, it suddenly became all she could think about.

“Gah!” Cassandra cried out angrily, grabbing at her hair and squeezing her eyes shut. “Why’s… it so  _hard!?”_

“I fear that, for whatever faults in corruption it once had, the Gotham City Police Department still has capable detectives and officers in its ranks,” Alfred offered, patting Cass’ shoulder tenderly. “Whenever they have asked for Master Bruce’s help or the help of the others, it has been only in the most dire of circumstances. Or with foes whose tactics are frightfully familiar and require their…  _unique_ attentions.”

With a whine from the back of her throat, Cass buried her face further into her hands. “I just want  _that_ one,” Cass groaned. “I just want them to say it’s Killer Moth. Then let me  _punch.”_

“That  _does_ sound as though it would have some appeal toward you,” Alfred replied crisply. “But I am afraid this case looks to be quite the former. A dangerous and unknown culprit with nails ensnared in the city. Difficult. Very difficult.”

Cass looked back up to the words printed out over the screen, her frown only growing as she watched the letters and numbers bleed into each other. “I need to  _see…_ If I’d been there… at crime scenes. Seen bodies. I could  _read_ them. I could  _tell_ what happened. That’s… That’s  _my_ detective work.”

“Which Miss Barbara says you  _more_ than excel at,” Alfred continued reassuringly. “But hopefully your wit and skill will prevent the necessity of finding a crime scene which is fresh on this case. Instead, you will stop the perpetrator by learning from what you read here and save even more lives—“

Immediately enraged, blood boiling like the green pools that had once overtook her veins, Cassandra got to her feet, kicking the chair out behind her and slamming her palms against the surface of the computer console hard enough to dent its hardy metal. “I  _CAN’T!”_ she roared viciously. “I’m  _stupid!_ I’m  _dumb!_ I can’t learn — words… words aren’t  _real._ They aren’t  _things!_ They don’t  _mean anything to me!”_

As quickly as the flash of anger had come, Cassandra felt it begin to wane, her eyes losing a heated glaze and leaving her instead to look at a stunned Alfred whose brows were high and lips pursed in silence.

Heavily breathing, Cassandra looked down to the damage she had caused, then back up to the computer screen where the mess of words and the dullness of their arrangement brought tears to her eyes all over again. “I can’t be a detective,” she admitted, biting her lip. “I’m not… I’m not smart.  _Everyone_ is smart. But not me. Not… Not  _me_ …”

“Oh, child,” Alfred’s soothing voice called. Cassandra looked up to him and he gently held her chin with one hand as the other gently wiped the streaks of tears from her cheeks. “You are the furthest person I have ever met from  _stupid_ or  _dumb,_ and I almost would shame you for even using such terrible terms against yourself. You are far too smart and beautiful and promising to feel such heartache.”

“I’m not good… at this,” Cass argued through her sniffs, hands waving to the screen. “They… They  _want_ me to learn. But I  _can’t._ Words aren’t  _real.”_

“And what do you mean by that?” Alfred asked. “You cannot form a story in your head from hearing them out loud?”

For some reason, Cassandra’s memory drifted to Dick and stories of Cinderella. The story that had no meaning until he acted it out for her, gleefully and with great expressiveness. “Sometimes…” Cass admitted. “But not like this. Not… without help.”

“Well, then, help has arrived,” Alfred offered.

Cass was less than thrilled at the proposition. “ _Batman_ doesn’t need help.”

To that, Alfred looked genuinely offended. “Well then, young lady, I would dare you to explain how — if the  _Batman_ needs no help — the rest of us all fit into this grand picture of his?”

At first Cassandra opened her mouth to protest, but she wasn’t sure how she could.

Fortunately, Alfred’s snark was somewhat contagious.

“Right now?” Cass clarified. “So he can… go on vacation.”

Alfred stood still, looking at her levelly, but his mustache took on a certain amused twist at the notion. One that was enough to inspire Cassandra’s own broad smile.

The butler then opened his arms to her. “My dear Miss Cassandra, I do believe that all of this hard work and intensive thought you have put forward on the family’s behalf is  _most_ deserving of a hug. Don’t you?”

Tearing up again despite herself, Cassandra stepped forward and tightly hugged Alfred as he returned the same. She sniffed and buried her face closer against his chest.

“Do not forget, Cassandra,” Alfred said down to her gently. “I am also here, to provide you as much help as you need. We all are. For we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Don’t you believe?”

“Yes,” Cassandra agreed. She then looked back to the computer screen. “Been listening for a while… still not getting the… the bruises.”

“They’re fairly gruesome attacks,” Alfred noted. “Wouldn’t you believe bruises would be a natural sign of defense.”

Releasing herself from Alfred’s hug, Cassandra looked back to the screen and shook her head, though hesitantly. “Don’t… know. Need to see bruising. Then I can tell… but… cuts are on chests…. also bruises across chest. Why all that? You don’t  _defend_ with chest against…  _knives.”_ She pursed her lips and remembered the description of the blade. “Not  _daggers.”_

“You believe it’s a dagger?” Alfred asked curiously. “Using a dagger to make a superficial wound on—“ He paused, eyes widening. “Chubala.”

Cassandra looked back at him, eyebrow raised. “Chu…ball…uh?” she repeated.

“One of the master’s first cases, from so many years ago. Not even Master Richard or Miss Barbara were around to help in those days. It was only the two of us and…” Alfred put a thoughtful hand to his chin. “You wouldn’t know of the connection, how could you? Those files are ancient, so old and disconnected from most of the cases solved since that I would be doubtful if even Master Timothy read into them.”

“Alfred?” Cass questioned, not following hardly at all.

Alfred then looked seriously to Cassandra. “Those bruises… they could be from other hands holding the victim down. The cut is sacrificial — part of a ritual. Master Bruce solved a case, many many years ago, which involved a growing cult in Gotham’s elite circles surrounding a mystical and devilish figure called Chubala. He solved it and stopped the practices, but its roots were deep within societal elites. There has always been a darkness capable of roosting in its place ever since. Especially when so few of the cult members other than the heads themselves were properly prosecuted.”

“It’s connected now?” Cass asked, almost hopefully.

“Unfortunately the similarities are stark, even to me after all these years,” Alfred conceded.

Not wasting another moment, Cassandra pulled down her mask over her face. She paused then leaned over to press a kiss through the mask’s fabric to Alfred’s cheek. “Thank you,” she said sincerely.

Then, before Alfred could get another word in, Batgirl raced to the platform where he bike was waiting and she quickly jumped onto it to race back to Gotham.

* * *

“Chubala.”

The word has escaped her lips nearly fifty times on the drive between the Batcave and Gotham Central. She uttered in under her breath two or three times more as she ascended to the familiar window to Jim Gordon’s office and slipped in without further invitation.

When he entered his office and closed his door, oblivious to the way she waited for him in the shadows, Cassandra said it one last time, boldly and clearly.

“Chubala.”

Gordon fumbled with his keys for a moment, looking to the shadows with surprise. He obviously was not expecting her — at least not  _her_ her. Maybe more of a  _him’s_ voice. But Cass was seemingly just full of surprises that night.

“What is that?” he asked after the shock wore off.

“Chubala. The cult,” Cass clarified, heart pounding a bit in her chest. She really hadn’t allowed Alfred to get much further in his explanation and she should have. But judging by the expression on Gordon’s face, he knew what she was talking about.

“That case is from… well almost twenty years ago now,” he revealed, eyes wide behind his glasses. “You really think that it has something to do with the current murders? I don’t even know if you’re old enough to know about the murders yourself.”

Regaining the confidence of  _Batgirl,_ Cassandra tilted her head. “Read records.”

“I suppose so,” Gordon continued, putting a hand to his chin as he walked across the room and turned his attention to his desk, fanning out the papers that were there and almost humming to himself over the casework. “I remember when that happened. He— The Batman hadn’t been around for that long. Horrible stuff. Didn’t end well for most people involved. But also didn’t go much our way either. Most of the people in that  _society_ were more concerned about the impact of their reputations to their stocks than they were about ever getting legally implicated.” He looked back to Cass with a furrowed brow. “Gotham was a much different place at the time. I wasn’t even commissioner yet. The city had… problems at the top. Believe it or not, crazy colored goons and all, from an enforcement perspective it’s better than it once was.”

Though she knew it would not pass through the cloth of her mask, Cassandra softened her expression. “Thanks to…  _you_ , Commissioner.”

“Only in part, if I even deserve  _that_ much,” Jim replied. “I’ll pull the old records and get my men on that direction… The previous detective on it… Yeah. Dammit. It was Bullock. Well, I was hoping to find a reason to get to him anyway.”

Feeling that her part was done, Cassandra began to sink back in the shadows, but almost as if he had a sixth sense toward the motion at that point, the Commissioner’s head snapped back up.

“That’s good work. An angle we weren’t going to be looking at for sure,” Gordon answered. “That’s a hell of a lead, thanks to you.”

Thinking back to Alfred, Cassandra reserved her bodily flinch. “Only…  _part,”_ she assured him.

“I knew we gave you quite a load last time so I didn’t light the signal yet — at least, I hadn’t gotten around to it,” Jim explained, pulling a pen from his pocket and grabbing a sticky note from his desk. “Turns out, we found another murder that fits the profile. Woman. Mid-twenties Same marks. Same general location. I just got back from sending a few people out so if you hurry you might get there before they do and… well, I know Batman likes to be early and catch things before we leave the crime scene. Maybe your fresh eyes could use the jump on this, too.”

Heart rate increasing, Cass bit her lip and looked at the sticky note as Gordon wrote out the address. She recognized a few letters but then the scribble was as foreign to her as any other written word. Her throat grew tight and painful. “Time,” she blurted out.

That made Jim stop and look up at her over the rim of his glasses. “Hm?”

“Need to… get there. You can just… tell me address,” Cassandra tried, hiding the shakiness in her voice by going as deep as she could, almost gravely.

“Are you… alright?” Jim asked, clearly confused.

“Wonderful,” Cass coughed. “Address?”

“Central Heights,” Jim answered, slowly lowering the sticky note and his pen. “Kane Street. Old condemned apartment building — thirty-fourth on Kane. Do you know where that is?”

“Already there,” Batgirl answered, heading out the window as quickly as she could manage. She had no idea what the Commissioner would make of her behavior or of  _anything,_ really, but she was almost too relieved to have avoided the situation of finding out all the same.

She focused instead on his thanks and his trust in her.

Then, slowly, as she got to her motorcycle and began to drive toward Central Heights, it hit Cassandra like a ton of bricks.

Another person was dead. Another life was lost. On  _her_ watch. In  _her_ city. Because she wasn’t figuring things out quickly enough.

For a moment, she almost got ill, but the second the wave of nausea passed, Cass took a breath and reminded herself of two important things: she  _would_ stop these murders because she  _was_ a detective, and also Bruce would  _not_ have left the city to her care and to her skills if he did not have faith in them both.

And with those cold comforts, Cassandra took off, heart heavy and brain pounding.

Lives were on the line.

* * *

Despite a break, the blow still felt devastating to Cassandra when she reached the building the Commissioner had given her long before the detectives.

She pushed through the emotion of the very  _thought_ of a life being lost due to her ineptitude and determinedly kept to the shadows, parking far enough away she was not seen by the officers already on scene. Then she used the building next to the condemned apartment, crossing its roof, and then carefully leaped down to the building’s rickety fire escape.

The crime scene was already cordoned off, which was good for Cassandra as it was easy to identify and also meant that there were no officers around until the detectives were there to call the room.

It gave Cassandra the moment to slip in and do what only she — as a  _detective_ — could do.

The broken glass of the window was scattered on the floor just beneath the window sill and not scattering too much further. The intruder — or intruder _s_ — had broken the window from the outside, but had also done so at a speed and angle that indicated they had used the roof across the alley just as she had.

But that left Batgirl — and by extension, the GCPD — the question of how someone could break through a window in that way and not land hard enough to make an impression in the floor’s carpet or to crush the glass.

It was an anomaly that Cassandra would not have been able to maneuver herself, and she had been trained for such things from literal birth. That meant there was a possibility that the attacker had never touched the ground at all despite leaping through the window.

That left the possibility of someone flying, or at least hovering. Which made the case  _infinitely_ more difficult by Cassandra’s estimations.

Once more dwarfed by the enormity of the situation at hand, Cassandra reached to her forehead and took a deep breath. She was doing it. She was  _proving herself._ She just needed to keep going.

Further into the room, the body was laid out over a few milk crates, arms crossed over her head, feet crossed at the ankles.

When Cassandra examined closer, pulling out her pen light, she could see the patterns of rope in the skin. She had been tied, for sure. Tightly and without a way to escape.

Which brought the question of why anyone would go through the trouble of  _untying_ her and taking the ropes with them. Most murderers, cultists or not, would find rope disposable.

Cass brought a hand to her chin and thought on the detail. Something might have been  _special_ about the rope, then. Something might have been related to the rituals.

But what  _rope_ could be that special?

The cuts were the same as the ones before, over the sternum, single blade that was dual edged. Ritualistic. Barbaric.

For a moment, Cassandra found herself not investigating with her limited time, but just looking into the poor woman’s eyes. They were glossy and rolled back, bulged with terror but frozen without life or feeling. They were the kind of eyes that would have been beautiful while alive — dark, endless pools to emote through. Cassandra’s stomach twisted at the painful thought that it was a life that was gone before she could personally have ever known her.

And that was  _sad._

By instinct, Cassandra began to move her hand toward the woman’s face, to close her eyes out of respect, when she heard the rumbling, dry voice of a man.

“Don’t. The police detectives need their turn.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Cassandra leaped over the crime scene, barreled through the apartment door and tackled the man who had been watching her at the waist. He must have been there before her in order to have not been noticed, but that also meant he had been hiding in the shadows from the other police officers on the scene in order to have seen her.

There was a  _very_ short list of people who would be in the room still after the police came to a clime scene.

The man was frightfully strong. Though he was taken down by the tackle and didn’t seem to have a particular fighting style to go off of, he was quick to rely on muscle memory for a swinging punch back in Cassandra’s direction.

When the man jabbed with his right fist it was tight and controlled, carrying the momentum all the way through. When he threw his  _right_ fist, it was quick to withdraw and go for a second punch she also evaded. His footwork changed, being quick and swaying.

Batgirl didn’t have to think for too long about who it was she was fighting.

Without another moment’s hesitation, she grabbed the bolas from her utility belt and in a blink of an eye threw both — wrapping around the man’s torso and ankles. He let out a grunt before falling.

Cassandra stood over him, eyes narrowed. “Two-Face.”

“Not anymore,” he grunted in return, struggling against the ropes. The normal face looked back at her from beneath a toboggan cap. “Just Harvey Dent now. Now let me go.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“Because I’ve not done anything wrong,” he argued.

“No. Why here?” she demanded.

“Because I heard about the murder from the police scanner he gave me so I came to work the case before they got here and the evidence was away from me for good,” he answered.

Confused, Cassandra tilted back away from him. He wasn’t lying… “Who gave you it?”

“Batman,” he answered. “When he told me I had to protect the city. You can ask him yourself if you don’t believe me.”

“You?” Cass asked, heart thumping in her chest. “You… He left  _you_ the city… to…”

Police were racing up the stairs and Cassandra’s opportunity to further examine the crime scene was gone. But she wouldn’t have been able to do more even if they hadn’t been barging in. With a few quick steps past Harvey Dent, Cassandra was out the window of the adjacent room and grappling to the rooftop of the nearby building.

Unlike her beauty and grace before, however, she wobbled carelessly and once she was at the top of the roof, she slammed into the cement hard, rolling over the tarmac top until her momentum gave way and she stopped on her stomach, face buried into the surface as she tried her hardest to sob, to  _scream,_ but only came out with dry heaves so painful her lungs felt like they were going to swell and burst.

He didn’t leave her the city.

He just  _left._

They all just  _left._ And she had  _nothing._ She wasn’t even a detective without help.

Her heaving continued, her whole body shuddering with them, as the large feathers and plumes on the surface of the building blew around her in the wind.


	11. The Family Affair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhhh boy. So, I didn’t have the opportunity to update this fic prior to my big move which has kept me pretty busy and my life completely consumed until about this week, unfortunately. But! I’m back now and more than ready to give my writing the attention it really deserves, I’m glad to say. Thank you to everyone who was so patient in waiting for this update and I hope that it’s worth the time you’ve been waiting! 
> 
> Special thanks to @mitchthebat, @go-wandering, @pullinajalonzallnite, @secretlystephaniebrown, and Kiyomisa on tumblr, ffnet, and AO3 for the feedback and support!

Tim had always hated engaging in the high society and unknowable nuances of formal dinners. The few times his parents traveled with him had meant a risk of causing incident with international archeological diplomacy on the line.

It made Tim worldly and terrified of social conduct well beyond his years.

Those long buried memories were the only ones in mind which could even come close to his discomfort at the feast tent, sitting beside Dick on pillows which Talia’s guard had set up for them — Talia at the head of the gathering and Bruce sat across from them.

Though, of course, Tim also supposed that awkward was a close enough sensation to it as well. Maybe that should have been his first instinctive association.

And by  _maybe,_ he of course meant  _most likely._

“I am afraid, Robin, that we only have access to local cuisine,” Talia spoke lightly. “My resources are stretched thin as it is at the moment, I have various assets in the region requiring my…” Talia trailed off, looking toward Bruce meaningfully, “ _guardianship_.”

Bruce took another drink prior to returning Talia’s gaze.

“There are many things in this region which require my attention as well,” Bruce replied. “Direct or otherwise.”

There was something in his tone that made both Tim and Dick glance to each other, like they couldn’t tell if it was something they alone had heard. But it wasn’t.

There was a context to the conversation utterly lost on them.

Talia looked to Tim again, her gaze all but freezing him in place. “Robin, if you  _do_ require something, however, you have only to ask.”

It was becoming obvious to Tim that he was encroaching on rude behavior, and anxieties buried with childhood began to fester once more.

He looked at the Ethiopian food, something he actually had liked for most of his life, and felt his stomach betray him with a sickly turn. It wasn’t made better by imagining it as American fast food either.

It was like Tim’s appetite had gone on strike and he only just realized how little hunger had motivated him at all in the last few months.

The connection as to why seemed obvious, but Timothy Drake had made himself familiar with denial since the first moments of realizing his heroes were only human in every way that hurt under their masks.

“Thanks, but I’ve not had much of an appetite today. The food looks… great though,” Tim fumbled through his words.

Considering the looks he received, Tim wasn’t sure if his explanation was completely accepted at face value. Fortunately, though, no one seemed all that interested in testing him either. Soon Talia turned her full attention back to Bruce and to the strangely stilted conversation that had been carrying on between them.

“Last we spoke I had chosen the side of my sister, as I recall,” Talia continued. “It was important to me that you understood my adherence to family. Even when that family no longer held the guidance and instruction of my father. I would assume that you still feel very much the same when it comes to family.”

“Of course,” Bruce answered. “And considering you and your sister’s hands in Ra’s no longer being the head of your family, I suppose my own part in the destruction of the Lazarus Pits is not held against me or mine.”

Dick wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin, slowly eyeing the two adults. “Well, this isn’t uncomfortable at all,” he muttered.

“Of course, my Beloved,” Talia answered simply. “If either Nyssa or I felt different you surely would have been made aware. The problems with my father’s inheritance have mostly to do with those who have taken pieces from his legacy for themselves in some banal attempts at a rebellion.”

Bruce seemed interested, folding his hands together. “Whisper A’Daire and her anthropomorphic followers, I’d assume.”

“How did you know?” Talia asked genuinely impressed.

“She had been the lead in the attack on Gotham after its recovery from the No Man’s Land sanctions. Her addiction to the poison which turned her and the others in that sect of your father’s empire was matched only by her servitude to him. Your insurrection along with your sister would not be conducive to her already unsteady loyalty and she and the other members of that sect following the word of the Book of Cain were still active in Gotham despite your sister’s promise to me as lately as the Gotham Gang Wars,” he concluded strongly. “My only question is why Nyssa would be against you meeting with me when I can assume we all similarly would like to see an end put to the Cult of Crime.”

“She is confident that its conclusion will come at the hands of someone you left in Gotham, my Beloved,” Talia explained. “Her concern comes only from how much control you can maintain from where you are now.”

Tim frowned, putting the pieces together himself. Bruce was concerned about Gotham, second guessing their journey, he could already tell. But Talia… she was speaking in half truths. And Tim wasn’t sure if Bruce was in a mind to see it after she had already helped them out.

So, against those instincts of self preservation, Tim coughed into his fist and drew attention to himself. Good children were seen but not heard. And Tim had always found a way to not be a  _good little child._

“Nyssa’s attention would be less on Gotham if she was worried about a different insurrection right under her nose,” Tim pointed out. “And I have it, from a few little  _Birdies,_ that she no longer has Lady Shiva supporting her claim. That would mean she needed someone else to support her who would have either a legitimate claim or was respected by the League of Assassins.” Tim squinted at Talia. “Wouldn’t you have both of those in check if you were behind her?”

“Tim,” Dick muttered lowly toward him.

Talia smiled. “Robin, you are becoming quite the detective yourself.”

“Are you turning against your sister, Talia? Do you need our help?” Bruce asked a little too freely for Tim’s tastes.

“Your concerns are noted, my Beloved. And appreciated. But I am not taking claim against my sister, merely removing a chess piece from her set,” Talia answered. “Some would claim that to be even worse.”

“What could be more important than a blood heir like the two of you?” Dick asked in concern.

The smile that sat flatly on Talia’s face was unsettling to Tim. “Perhaps it was impolite to bring such matters to the table. They are better for another time.”

“And when would that be?” Tim pressed protectively.

“Tim,” Bruce said, a cautious furrow in his brow. It was still enough to make Tim back off. At least for the time being.

Dick began wrapping some of the food in a napkin. “For when you get hungry tonight,” he said to Tim.

The rest of the dinner was quiet and cold.

* * *

There were small, private tents available but Talia and Bruce were in the main tent where they had ate well after Tim was ready to sleep.

That, of course, ended with Tim laying on his back, staring at the tent above him and anxious about  _what_ could be keeping Bruce up and with Talia rather than conferring with them in the private tent. There was a third place made for Bruce, but hours later it still wasn’t filled by him.

Dick, to his credit, had came along not much later than Tim had, but he never fully laid down to sleep.

Even with one arm in a cast, Dick was determined to exercise his body with his usual routine. It was the kind of dedication to exercise that Tim might have found inspiring for himself if he wasn’t thoroughly uninterested in maintaining his own shape at the time. Instead, he was just watching the tent, the ripples in the fabric as it rolled with the desert winds.

“What are you thinking, Tim?”

After a few moments of silence, Tim turned his head enough to look at Dick as he continued his one armed pushups. He frowned a bit more. “What am I thinking?” he parroted.

“You’re quiet and you weren’t stuffing your face with food,” Dick pointed out. “Very unlike you. Plus you kept looking at Talia like you were going to leap over the table and tackle her at a moment’s notice.  _Pretty_ sure that she was prodding you for it.”

“Was she?” Tim asked before looking back at the ceiling. “I don’t think she’s being fully honest with us.”

“Not surprising,” Dick countered.

“And neither is Bruce.” Tim added it before he could even think over the words, realize what he was saying. But the moment they left him, he knew that there wasn’t any taking them back. He glanced over to Dick a little sheepishly, unsure of how he’d react to the statement.

Taking a deep breath, Dick finished a last push up before dropping to his knees and rising up to sit back, legs folded beneath him. There was a light sweat on his brow as he looked at Tim, which only served to distract Tim from the tight frown for a few seconds.

In the silence, Tim’s heart was pounding, threatening to break free from his chest at a moment’s notice.

“Fair,” Dick finally said, reluctantly like Tim was all but pulling the word out of him. “There’s something strange going on. But do we have any idea what?”

Too relieved to really give Dick’s question that much thought, Tim melted into his pillows and shrugged slightly in return.

“I don’t know, but Bruce hasn’t been big on providing answers lately,” he said back to Dick.

Nodding, Dick began to settle down in the cot laid out for him. “That’s fair.” When he settled, Tim could hear the breaths he took with a regular rhythm.

Somehow, the sound of it settled Tim’s nerves, began to lull him into a gentle rest.

“Are you hungry?” Dick asked without warning. “I still have the rolls from dinner.”

“Mmebeem lahturrf,” Tim tried his best to answer, but an unnatural tiredness was overcoming him. And even then, Dick was snoring before him.

* * *

The moment Tim woke up it was to a clatter of metal and the shine of a sword inches from his face.

It was a startling moment, one that nearly froze him in his cot, but as deadly as hesitation could often be for them in their line of duty, it didn’t cost Tim his life yet. Not because the sword had been stopped by his prepared hand or because of anything he did to save himself, but because a second blade wielded by none other than Talia al Ghul herself was bracing over Tim’s head, fighting back the sword meant for his neck.

For a moment, Tim wasn’t thinking about  _anything —_ a bleary haze in his brain trying to process what the hell had just happened. Then his first coherent thought bubbled to the surface, a nagging question of  _why_ as he looked at the ferocity on Talia’s face.

“Tell your master that the sword has been drawn,” Talia hissed at the cloaked dervish.

For a moment, Tim was just impressed more than anything else, but before the dervish could back down and run off, there was a flurry of movement and the dervish’s feet were knocked out from under him. The dervish flung backward onto his back but did not get far before the same flurry of motion knocked him out with the same viciousness that Talia had been using to defend Tim earlier.

When the moment was over and Tim could clearly see Dick was the blur, he felt even more relief, able to breathe easier.

Talia seemed less impressed. “He was to deliver a message for me,” she snapped at him. “Now it shall be delayed.”

“We need to interrogate him and find out who he is and why he was after us,” Dick snapped back.

Feeling a need to do more than sit dumbly in his bed, Tim pushed himself up onto his knees. “Yeah, I’d be interested in that, too.”

“Apprehending the warrior was not necessary for that endeavor!” Talia defended. “I can recognize the elite guard of my own family. And now our time is cut shorter due to the politics at play.”

Getting to their feet at the same time, Dick and Tim glanced toward each other questioningly.

“Your family’s? So that means…” Tim got out slowly just before the flaps of their tent were blown open.

“The dervishes are from Nyssa Raatko, she has decided to make her move,” Bruce said as he entered, a strangely familiar, stoic expression on his face. It was as if he had slipped back into an old hat, an old  _cowl_ in those moments.

“Dervishes?  _Plural?”_ Dick asked before heading toward the edge of the tent and raising the flap open himself.

Sure enough, there were multiple similarly dressed warriors left strewn across the dark night sands of the desert. There were more without slashing wounds than there were with, but Tim could still see them clearly, and when he reexamined the blade in Talia’s hands he could see a matching sight of gore.

But that meant that she had been fighting with Bruce while Tim and Dick had not even woke yet. That meant that his  _unnatural tiredness_ was—

“We were drugged,” Tim deduced.

“Not all these dervishes appeared out of nowhere,” Dick equally deduced, a furious glare on his face as he turned back to face Talia and Bruce.

Bruce had no reaction but Talia… Well, by Tim’s estimates she almost seemed pained.

“I have declared war on my family,” Talia stated without remorse, no matter her expression. “The repercussions of such will go beyond me.” Then, to Tim’s surprise, her Lazarus green eyes turned squarely onto Tim. “They already have once tonight. And so I must see to it that others are not harmed likewise.”

To that, Tim squinted uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure what she meant.

“You can’t leave alone, not after this,” Bruce said firmly.

Talia looked over her shoulder and almost tisked him for the concern. “Beloved, it is not a decision for you to make. Not when my own have betrayed me once tonight already. I will not have them endangering my heart as well.”

Surprisingly, at least for Tim, Bruce didn’t seem to have any visible reaction to Talia’s claims. Instead, he merely watched her as she left the tent as mysteriously as she had come into their journey back at the market, and it left an unsettled, confused feeling in Tim’s stomach. He could not shake the same sense he had at dinner that something larger, something more pressing, was going on, and he was maybe the only one who was blissfully unaware of the remaining details.

It was not a feeling Tim appreciated, not when the last few times he had been removed from the grander details it had all led to him losing things he would have never possibly thought he could afford to lose.

“Are the two of you alright?” Bruce finoallyasked, turning back to Dick and Tim.

“Groggy, but I’ll power through it,” Dick said firmly before glancing to Tim. “What about you, Timbo?”

“Fine. What are we doing next?” Tim asked, more that happy to change the subject. “We can’t just leave this stone unturned—“

“It doesn’t have to do with us for now,” Bruce said firmly, surprising them both.

“It… doesn’t?” Dick pressed, brow raised suspiciously.

“No, and we don’t have the time to spare. Talia can reach me if she needs to,” Bruce continued, pushing forward.

“Where do we have to get that is so important?” Tim asked, gathering his stuff as quickly as possible.

“Nanda Parapet,” Bruce answered. “To meet a friend.”


End file.
